AADOM DISTINCTIONcast – The “Dental Manager” Title: Not One-Size-Fits-All
Aligning Scope, Authority, and Compensation with the Work You Actually Carry
If your title says “Dental Manager,” but your responsibilities say “HR Director, Operations Lead, Financial Coordinator, Compliance Officer, and Team Coach,” your role is misaligned.
Course Description:
In today’s dental environment, the “Dental Manager” title is no longer one-size-fits-all. Scope varies widely from practice to practice, yet many titles, authority levels, and compensation structures haven’t kept pace with what managers are actually carrying. That misalignment fuels frustration, burnout, and unclear expectations.
Compensation conversations become emotional when the role itself is unclear. When scope, authority, and accountability aren’t aligned, managers are often responsible for outcomes without the authority to lead them, and that is not sustainable.
This course helps dental managers define what they truly do, clarify the leadership level they’re operating at, and build a professional, fact-based plan to advocate for the title, authority, and compensation structure that fits their real scope and impact—without burning bridges
Learning Objectives:
- Identify why the “Dental Manager” title is not a one-size-fits-all role
- Audit true responsibilities and define what you own versus what you absorb by default
- Distinguish responsibility, authority, and accountability—and spot where misalignment drives burnout
- Define the leadership role you are truly performing (Office Manager, Practice Administrator, Operations Manager, Director of Operations)
- Apply a practical framework to prepare for a confident, professional role-and-compensation conversation
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Read the Transcript Now!
Penny: Welcome to the DistinctionCast, where AADOM showcases the best and brightest minds in the dental industry from within our Dental Management Association.
I’m Penny Reed, the Executive Vice President of Membership and Events for AADOM. Thank you so much for joining us today.
AADOM’s DistinctionCast is more than insights into dental management. We amplify the voices of AADOM’S distinction holders, the leaders in the trenches of dental management who share their insights, inspiration, and real-world strategies to help you thrive in your practice today.
Today, it is my privilege to introduce today’s guest, Christi Bintliff. Say hey to everyone, Christie, and I’ll tell ’em more about you.
Christi: So glad to be here.
Penny: Alright. Christi is a visionary coach and owner of LEAP 2 Solutions, based in Raleigh, Durham, North Carolina, and Treasurer of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants. With over 30 years of experience as a dental operations director, coach, speaker, and published writer, Christi specializes in leadership, practice management, and strategic planning.
Christi’s LEAP methodology helps vision-driven leaders bridge generational gaps, align teams, and foster collaboration for sustainable growth. Her innovative themed retreats combine experiential learning and team building to elevate morale and drive unity across diverse teams.
While rooted in dentistry, Christi’s expertise extends to businesses across industries, empowering organizations to embrace change, enhance performance, and thrive together.
And I’m super excited about her topic today, and I’ll kick it off by one of the little paragraphs here in the course intro: If your title says Dental Manager but your responsibilities say, HR Director, Operations Lead, Financial Coordinator, Compliance Officer, and Team Coach, your role is misaligned.
So, boy, if there were ever a phrase that dental office managers—that phrase can mean a lot of things, you hit the nail on the head. So, super excited to hear your message today, Christi. We’ll turn it over to you.
Christi: Yeah, so I’m super stoked to be here today. This is a topic that I see throughout the industry on the social platforms, and I thought I would try to break it down and simplify it for the managers that are struggling with it.
When Dental Titles Don’t Match the Role
So, to say that dental manager title is not a one-size-fits-all is putting it mildly because in any practice, we can be doing multiple roles. So, it’s not just one.
What’s really important to understand is that the responsibility is truly what defines the role, and then assigning the appropriate title just makes it clear and brings it all together.
So, what happens a lot of times is that we are a mismatch between the title and the responsibilities that we carry. We have limited authority despite our accountability and expectations, and then our compensation is often out of alignment in comparison to the title and the responsibilities that we carry.
Woo, that was a mouthful, wasn’t it?
So, I wanted to break, break it down and make it be very simplified for the viewing audience today. And I wanted you to think about it in terms of: Are you running the day? Are you running the business? Are you running the business and the systems?
A lot of times, the dental manager title will be solely assigned to someone who is in the administrative role. And before I get a little deeper in this, I want to clarify that no matter what role you are in or what level of responsibilities that you carry, we all are important to the success and drive of our practice. So I wanted to put that out there, cause we’re never less than—we’re always more than in this role.
So, going back to “Runs the day.” That is mainly a dental manager title assigned to someone who’s in the administrative role—front office operation and scheduling, patient communication, insurance verification, A/R, daily team coordination and handoff.
When we go to the middle block, we’re looking at practice—I just signed a title to it—Practice Administrator: Running the business. This is the HR and the people management, compliance risk, payroll compensation, profit and law statements. So, you’re, you’re working with the accountant at some level.
But when we get over to the far right: “Runs the Business and the Systems.” Now this is more like an operations director. We have a—a lot of times we have the same level of duties as those in the middle block of practice administrator, but we’re taking it one step further and we’re diving in and working alongside of the dentist and the CPA little bit more deeper than if you were running the business aspect.
We are looking at key performance indicators, profitability, optimization, cultural leadership, development, growth, sustainability, and scalability.
So, we have a lot more added duties when we’re over at this sector. So, to assign dental manager title to all is confusing, not only for the dentist, it’s confusing for those applying for roles when you see a job and you’re applying. It just makes everything a lot more confusing.
So, when we look at it on a grid, this is how I broke it out and this is not something that I pulled. It is based on my expertise and it’s only for illustration only.
But if you look, the profit and law loss statement oversight, that’s falling into Practice Administrator, Operations Director. Operations Director will go a little bit more deeper than maybe the Practice Administrator.
Admin and clinical flow: Clearly that’s defined as more towards the dental manager, but oftentimes Practice Administrator and Operations. We’re still overseeing that to make sure that things run smoothly.
Financial involvement: That again, is going to rely for both the administrator and the director. But, I did include dental manager because even if you are in only running the admin area, you still are responsible for making sure collections are hovering around 98%, that we are still getting insurance, and that we are also making appropriate allocations so that we can get patients to pay their bills. So, there is some involvement with that.
HR compliance: that’s gonna solely be over here with the administrator or the directors level of authority. Dental managers, if they’re specific in the admin role of the day-to-day business, they’re going to have limited authority on what they can and can’t do. Whereas practice administrators and directors, we have a lot more autonomy.
Also practice administrators and operations directors, we are setting the tone for the culture and the leadership. Not to say that those in a dental manager role that are in admin and overseeing day to day aren’t, but this level of responsibility and maintaining that level of culture and leadership falls solely on us.
So, I hope that me bringing this illustration to you helps you kind of distinguish where it lies in responsibilities.
Why Alignment Really Matters
And then why it matters. Alignment matters so much because when titles match responsibility, expectations, and authority in compensation, they just naturally fall in place.
But when they are misaligned, it becomes this gray area. Why is so and so making more than me? Why can’t I make decisions? Because nothing is clearly defined.
And we have to—in order for us to bring our best self forward in whatever role that we’re in, we need to know what our level of responsibility and expectations are, which is why alignment is so, so important.
The Impact of Unclear Roles
Now, the other component of this is when we don’t have an idea of what we are expected to do or what our role is or what our level of authority is. We are just constantly firefighting. We are in positions of decision bottleneck. We’ve got conflicting priorities. Compensation talks then end up being emotional.
You know, “I’ve got so much work on my plate and I’m not being paid adequate.” You get into the emotional side of the brain.
And all of this results into the next part, which is burnout. We’ve got too much scope and not enough authority or compensation. We are frustrated because there’s no clear, concise role and it creates a little bit of resentment.
And then this body language that we assume and mentality that we assume, because of all of this, this bleeds out into our team and it causes performance problems to occur because we are not presenting in our best self.
So, again, for us, when they’re not clearly defined, we’ve got burn out. We become poor performers at some point, and we’re just frustrated in general. All ties back to that there’s no clearly defined title, responsibilities and expectations.
Auditing and Aligning the Role
So, I think that we have to take it upon ourselves to audit our role first and then audit it alongside our dentist. Because I wrote an article on this very same topic that was in a dentist-specific magazine.
And let me tell you, the dentists that reached out to me, they did not understand that there are varying roles within that dental manager title. And for them to have some clarity on that allowed them to be able to redefine and revise their ad so that they were attracting the person that they needed for their practice.
And, I thought that was great. And then I see this again coming up on the social platforms within AADOM and other manager sites, you know, where we don’t really understand. But truly it comes back to responsibilities. S
So, auditing the role. Look at what you’re actually doing. Remember the slides before I showed you the difference? Run the day, run the business. Run the business and systems.
So, write out what you do in a day. Have that clear alignment and that will help you to support fairness and long-term satisfaction. Identify the gaps between the role and the actual duty.
Sometimes I see that, um, someone is assigned a practice administrator or even operations director, but they are performing the duties of just solely being in the front office in the day to day operations. So there again, it can flip the script a little bit depending on how clear the owners are with their ad and what they’re looking for, but also with us. So, I just wanted to throw that out there.
So, we have to understand where the gaps are and understand that when we can figure out where we fit in the script, then we can better understand why our compensation may be lower than it should be, or sometimes higher than it should be, if we are only doing administrative, rather than running the whole practice.
So, then we have to align the title. I feel like title is important. Some will say Dental Manager is okay, because within that we are worrying about the responsibility. But I think for optics point of view, we need to have a title that best fits the role and responsibilities, and therefore it makes it easier for dentists to understand the varying compensation levels.
And then within that, establishing the benchmarks. You know, your key performance indicators. Regularly evaluate you level of responsibility, your scope of responsibility and your compensation alignment.
And then the collaborative approach. We assume that dentists know, but they really don’t know. So, part of us is to educate them on this particular topi,c like we do on many other topics in our day to day. We have to get them outside of their clinical mindset and focus on this particular thing.
So, we have to work together. We have to make them understand that there is a difference within that manager title.
So, I hope that this, this is helping you.
Advocating for Fair Compensation
Now advocating for the right compensation. This is yet another layer within the conversations that I see on the social platforms. Again, I mentioned it, is that we get caught up in, “She’s got more candy than I’ve got. She’s got three more pieces of candy and I’ve got two. You know, this is unfair because I’m wearing the same color of blue and I’m on the same team.’
But, it really comes down to being clear on your scope. When it’s—advocating. If you cannot advocate for compensation, if you are, if your scope is undefined and your expectations vary. If your don’t have accountability at certain levels and your compensation doesn’t anchor back to that.
But when it’s aligned, when you can clearly advocate for that, you can justify that. It makes it easier for the dentist to understand why you may or may not be deserving of an elevation in your compensation package.
So, this was the kind of description I just gave you a few minutes ago: “She has more candy than I’ve got.”
So, you see at the bottom. “I’m making 60,000, but he over here is making 75. Oh, wait a minute. Now we got somebody making $90,000 and they got bonus. I’m doing the same thing. Why am I not doing it?”
So, it’s easy to slough it off on that you might be on the lower end because of your geographical location. Again, it just clearly defines that those people in those higher level compensation packages just have more levels of responsibility.
And that’s truly why I was showing you this, is to never feel bad about yourself because you may have lesser responsibilities because as you grow in your role and as you move along in your career journey, you naturally start building your portfolio of responsibilities and experience. And so, with that, as you move along, your salary naturally should increase with that.
But from the manager’s perspective, as I just talked about, same title. Similar workload. Why do they make more? We’ve already discussed that.
And with the owner’s perspective, because there’s different responsibilities. Once they understand there’s different business risks with those higher level positions and titles and responsibilities, and the pay then is based on scope and not tenure.
Reframing the Compensation Conversation
Now, reframing the compensation conversation.
Folks, we gotta think like a dentist thinks. We can’t just go in there and be like, “So, are my friend Sally over here in San Diego is making a hundred thousand dollars. I’m doing that too. I’m doing the same roles and responsibilities.”
Even if you are paralleling, you can’t go in with an emotional approach to that. You have to think like a dentist owner. Dentist owners think on fact-based information—not emotional. They want you to present your story clearly, fact-based, armed with all the information so they can process what you are advocating for.
So, understand your value. Clearly explain your value to that practice, what you bring to the table.
If you are in the higher-level positions, such as the practice administrator or operations director, trust me, I know this. It’s hard to find that specific if you’re searching through all the job titles for dentistry in your area. It’s virtually hard to find something that parallels those two titles and responsibilities.
So, when I was advocating for myself, once upon a time, I started looking over in the medical, in the healthcare roles for practice administrator and operations director, COO, because I had worked in medical and I understood that there were clearly defined definitions and responsibilities under those titles, whereas over here in dentistry we didn’t have that.
So, if you’re having trouble finding it doing your research, look into the other areas for a comparable, and usually medical or healthcare you will find it.
And then highlight the unique qualifications that you have: your skills, any certifications, any of the training that you’ve done here on AADOM or other continuing education platforms that you’ve done on your own.
We’re not handed leadership, in my opinion. We walk into it. We climb into it. We are given opportunities a lot of times to take CE from the employer. But in order for us to build, we have to take that initiative and do a lot of it on our own. We’ve gotta get down there and get in the grid of it.
And then, once you do this and you’ve found comparables, look at what those salary ranges are within your area. We don’t want to overload the dentist. We want to be fair about compensation when we’re presenting it and advocating it. And we need to understand that it is going to dictate based on our location and based on how that practice is performing.
In my opinion, managers, practice administrators, operations directors that are performing at the highest level—we are producers also. Dentists tend to focus on hygiene producing and their production. So, we have to flip that script and let that show them that by what we bring to the table and what we do, and the systems that we put in place, are also producing and helping that practice scale up and be able to be sustainable even through the roughest of times.
And negotiate with confidence. You’ve got to bring your A-game to the table when you’re sitting down with a dentist. You can’t be nervous about it. You’ve gotta be in the right mindset, but you don’t need to be cocky about it, and you don’t need to be demanding about it because this is a collaboration. You may not get exactly what you want, but the chances are you’re going to get pretty close to it, at least that they will have an understanding.
And if you are lucky, which I hope that you’ll be, secure any agreements that are made in writing, so there’s never any question about what took place and what her expectation was.
And understand that if they come back with a lower compensation than what you are hoping for, counter that with, “Would you consider adding an opportunity for bonus for me in this specific role?” because that can also be a good caveat. Dentists like that because then it becomes a win-win for them, you know, because you’re going to show them in this quarter: “I did this and this and this, which equated to savings, increased production, things of that nature.”
How to Have the Conversation
Now, how do we have that conversation?
Start with the book business lens first: “I’d like to review my role from a business and operations standpoint to ensure that any title compensations are appropriately lined with my responsibilities.”
Wow! Boom! Right there, that dentist hears you.
Second: State the scope of your responsibilities. Dentists don’t always know. Dentists don’t always know what we do, so we have to clarify it to them.
And then connect, as I was saying before, the business impact—what your responsibilities directly affect in efficiency, compliances, profitability, team performance, culture—all those things. And reference your benchmarks.
And then, ask the question. “I’d like to discuss aligning my title and compensation that best fits my scope of responsibility (SOR) and the business impact that I bring to the table.”
See, when we phrase it like this, and we can clearly see how that conversation can go, the dentist is bought in, he doesn’t feel attacked, he doesn’t feel that you’re demanding. It becomes a collaborative process, and you are then the educator to them for the ones that don’t understand that there is a clearly-defined difference.
So, this is just what we’ve talked about today. We’re looking at the title and realizing it doesn’t fit. Going back to the responsibilities, distinguishing what our accountabilities are, auditing our responsibilities so that we do have the information and helping the dentist understand, and then we’re going to be confident when we advocate for a compensation rebalance.
Leading Forward Starts with You
So, guys, what I really want to say is we want to lead forward. No matter your title, no matter your scope of responsibilities, no matter your compensation—every role that we are in, in management—it matters.
So, with that said, we got this! You have the ability now to have that conversation with your dentist, and I cannot wait to hear how this goes for you. And I hope that this presentation has kind of broke it down in a manner that you can clearly understand the difference.
Thank you for your time today.
How Dental Management Has Evolved—and Why Titles Matter
Penny: Awesome. Thank you so much, Christi. What great information.
And wow! I mean, you and I have both been in the dental field now—well, I’m a little beyond you. You started when, you know, you were seven. I think I started when I was five.
And, nothing could be truer than to say the dental manager title has evolved.
Christi: Yes.
Penny: What do you think has contributed to that or why it really isn’t one size fits all anymore?
Christi: I think, over time, we were just tasked with a lot more—a lot more responsibilities. And I don’t think it was the dentist. I think it was us that did it.
We were hungry. We wanted to grow our careers and we were just—and I still am that way. I wanna do this, I wanna learn that. And then, the more that we were learning and growing, the more we were owning that.
And, so, the role just naturally evolved over time. You know, I’m still in that. Even though I consult a lot, I still work in a practice some, and I’m still learning and I love every bit of it. But I, I think that that’s truly how that role kind of evolved is, is a little bit of them adding more to it, but a whole lot of us trying to level up in our experience.
Penny: And then I would think too, you know, since you and I both started, there are now multi-locations like what a general practice looks like has also changed a lot as well. And I’m sure it’s not done.
Christi: Oh, no!
Penny: No, no.
What are some of the biggest mistakes that office managers make? I’m using that term—leaders in the dental management profession make, when they ask for a title or a pay change?
Christi: I think a mistake that we make and it’s just who we are because we’re human. We come at it at in an emotional point of view. And a lot of times, trying to have those conversations when you’re in that state of mind, just as if we were having it with our spouses—it doesn’t bid well for us.
So, we have to make sure that we can step away and not—we’re going to be emotionally invested, but we need to be calm and assertive, but not having those emotions as the driving force behind that compensation discussion.
Do you agree Penny, or do you have a take on that?
Penny: That’s definitely difficult. Practice on a practice on a friend, not a coworker, right?
You touched on some really powerful words: responsibility, authority, accountability. What are some of the distinctions between those words and why does that matter?
Christi: So, for responsibility, it’s what you’re expected to do. And for authority, it is the level of a power that they have given you to make decisions.
And then accountability is what you’re measured by. I just tried to break it down and simplify it.
Do you have anything to add to that?
Penny: I think that is spot on. And it’s interesting too, how a title, which, you know, there’s two different ways to look at things, and as I was thinking through what you were sharing.
You could say a title is only a title, which is true, right? Because you’ve got—it’s more important about how you show up.
Yet often, if the title doesn’t reflect the level of authority or empowerment that the doctor has given you, you will get overridden, things get pushed back on the doctor. So, no, I love how you made that clear and simple. That’s great.
Starting the Pay Conversation the Right Way
What do you recommend to someone who wants to start the conversation with their dental practice owner without it feeling like they’re making a demand for more money?
Christi: You know, when you’re working in a practice, us managers, whatever role or title we have, we have a relationship with our dentist—a trust-based relationship, or we wouldn’t be in those roles.
So, I think just coming at it with that open communication that you’d like to discuss your position and also what you’re bringing to the table. Just approach it organically.
Don’t do it where it feels forced or when you’re not in the right mindset, but approach it based on the relationship that you have and other conversations that you have with your dentist. Certainly, we have to go to them and talk to them on various, numerous conversations throughout the day or the week that sometimes are unpleasant.
Sometimes we have to talk to them about the attitude that they’re bringing to the table, and that’s a hard conversation. So, think about how you approach those difficult conversations and realize that this would be sort of how you would approach that.
But come in in with confidence but not cockiness. You want to not alienate your dentist owner. You want it to be very much of a collaborative conversation.
Penny: I love that. And, to add a secondary part to that question: how important is it that the dental office manager, operations manager, whatever title we wanna assign, knows the numbers and can tie that conversation into business performance?
How important is that?
Christi: Oh, it’s an extremely important that we know the numbers, especially when we have those high level of responsibilities. Because if you understand the profit and loss statement, and you understand the areas which needs to have significant improvement, and you can hone in on them and find solutions that take that where it may be at a plateau, but you’re fine tuning it and it can clearly show that what you brought to the table, the solutions that you implemented, consistently help to improve profitability.
One of the things that, you know, we should be looking at is our annual production and collection goals, and we should be planning for that next year in September for the following year that’s coming up, but we’re reviewing all of those key performant metrics.
And this allows you to state your case when you are getting ready to have that conversation about compensation because you can clearly show that I identified that we were paying too much for medical gas. I’m saying that because that’s an issue I’m dealing with and I took it upon myself to see other vendors that were in the area for cost saving metrics.
And once implemented, this is what I saved in this year, by helping us make that change in comparison to the vendor that we were using before.
Penny: Yeah, I think that’s so important because, especially with all the overhead pressures now, if we know the numbers, at least the ones that we’re privy to as well as, if not better than, than the doctor. Then we’ve really, you know, kind of become an active acting business partner, even though we may not be on paper.
Christi: Exactly. And we’re oftentimes like the consultant too, cause we are collaborating with the CPA and together you are working in a consultant role with that dentist so that they have a clearer understanding of what is actually going on.
How to Assess Fair Pay
Penny: So true. Okay, one last question here as we wrap up. What is the best way for someone to assess the fair and, you know—I love the word fair. Fair is the thing that comes to town once a year with the rides and the corn dogs and cotton candy, or what you pay to get on the bus, right? Or the subway.
Christi: Right
Penny: So, fair. How do we assess fair pay for the role that we are actually performing in the office?
Christi: So, I, I would just say start looking at your job placement ads for your specific location. And then look for your state. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for in the dental realm, remember I said try to look into for the medical sector, healthcare sector for a role that is trending similar to the duties and responsibilities that you have.
Also, you can go on Payscale. There’s a lot of online platforms that you can go in and try to type in what your responsibilities are, and that’ll kind of help hone it in.
How to Connect with Christi
Penny: Okay. Very, very good. Thank you so much for your perspective and insights.
And for those tuning in, I mean, Christi really does have a unique perspective—that of a dental office manager, of a consultant, of one of the, you know, less than, definitely less than 500 across the country—DAADOM’s. I mean, as the whole series here, she has a level of education that many others don’t and also a lot of experience.
So, before we conclude, Christi, what is the best way for individuals to get in touch with you, whether it’s speaking, consulting, or maybe they have a follow up question regarding something that you shared today?
Christi: Sure. Uh, you can reach out to me—you can text me. I love getting texts, so text me at (919) 798-2116 and you can also email me at leap2solutions@gmail.com.
I just wanna throw this out to you. If you are struggling for clarity on your role or compensation conversations, I am more than happy to help you. I have been down that road, many years ago, when I was advocating for myself. And I also try and advocate for others.
So, I am here as a resource for the AADOM community, and I hope that you will consider reaching out to me on this topic.
Penny: I love that. I love that. And that is the spirit of our community for sure.
So, thank you again so much for not only your sharing your time and your talents, for being an AADOM distinction holder, and more importantly, for sharing your expertise with the AADOM tribe and those that may be interested in joining the tribe. So, we appreciate you partnering with us to educate dental office managers and leaders.
And to those who are watching or listening, thank you for tuning in. Be sure to follow AADOM on all of our social channels so that you’re aware of those educational opportunities.
Thank you again, Christi.
Christi: Yes. Thank you for having me.
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Learn About Our Presenter:
Christi Bintliff, DAADOM
Christi is a visionary coach and owner of LEAP2 Solutions, based in Raleigh-Durham, NC, and Treasurer of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants. With over 30 years of experience as a dental operations director, coach, speaker, and published writer, Christi specializes in leadership, practice management, and strategic planning.
Christi’s LEAP Methodology helps vision-driven leaders bridge generational gaps, align teams, and foster collaboration for sustainable growth. Her innovative themed retreats combine experiential learning and team building to elevate morale and drive unity across diverse teams.
While rooted in dentistry, Christi’s expertise extends to businesses across industries, empowering organizations to embrace change, enhance performance, and thrive together.
