Pacific Dental Services Employee Reviews about "dentists"

Pros

I am literally trying to think of pros and I’m having a hard time

Cons

Can’t take time off, very frowned upon. I tried taking time off when my family member died but they didn’t let me. When business is slow they make you do cold calls for hours in a day. In my office, the dentist and the manager have arguments in front of patients and in front of me, putting blame on the other person for mistakes Any time I made any little mistake, the manager would give me attitude. They expect you to know everything even if they did not teach you it, but they will pretend they taught you. No insurance training, you just get thrown in.

Pros

The only pro I could think about is that if you are desperate for a Job and need a position, they will hire you regardless of what you say or do at interview. Pacific has such a high rate of turn over, people quit quite often.

Cons

Pay seems great in theory when you are presented with a job but in reality PDS way of pay is so complicated that you are promised money that you never end up seeing. I never saw the bonus I was offered at the interview because of some new reason always. There is a lot of unethical dentistry happening and I left because I could never agree to put my license on line for a few corporate numbers. Most of the time, I ended up fixing previous dentists work because so many people left that all the treatment plans are half done only. Will overcharge patients for everything. Owners are so greedy and take all cases that generate more money, making 5k a month itself is pain. Management was of not much help either. If you speak ill of the company or it’s ways, you become the bad guy instead of taking initiative to fix things. Work hours were also draining. 10hrs a day 5 days and also some meetings after work hours. All the offices are very heavily based on new patients so you are forced to see a full extra column of new patients all day and their new patient exams are free. You are always overworked. So, you are basically seeing people for nothing much in return. You’ll also see that the office dental assistants or managers are always the older employees but there is always a new dentist in house so the assistants and manners basically rule the office instead of you deciding how to do your dentistry. They know that you’ll quit and there will be a new doc anyways. Very dangerous environment to put your license to put through, that you work so hard to get.

Pros

Great front desk folks, great dental assistants, awesome office manager, all working under bad circumstances.

Cons

Understaffed, overworked, underpaid, underappreciated. I can't speak for every PDS office, but the one that I worked at (Orchard Dental) was perhaps the worst dental office I've worked at in my time as a dental assistant. The fact that my office was able to operate the way it operates makes me have little faith in the company as a whole. This company stands behind the Bible in their mission statement, but it practices like something from Hell. As a dental assistant for PDS, you'll spend your days running around trying to keep set up/break down rooms, seat patients, take x rays, apply restorations, miss lunch, and APOLOGIZE to patients when their treatment is taking two hours longer than promised as a result of the office being overbooked and the dentists offering more same day treatment than the staff/the equipment can handle. Absolutely disgusting.

Pros

Pay was decent at first. I was demoted indefinitely with decreased pay due to Covid. Benefits are good. Met a few good people.

Cons

You may read this and other bad reviews about PDS, only to brush it off. You may think to yourself, you're intelligent, resilient, unbothered, and tough enough to get through all the nonsense. None of this will happen to you. I thought the same. May the odds be in your favor. I suspect the 5 Star Reviews are made by new or high-ranking employees, to improve the overall facade of PDS. However, there is such a high turnover rate because PDS is ultimately rotten to the core. Within your first week, you will be floored by the outdated, multi-program system you must learn, just to assist one patient with a simple task and get through your day. Though they are changing over to new software (EPIC). Something to look forward to. Anxiety levels are high throughout the office, due to always being short staffed (turnover), rushed/incomplete training, unrealistic expectations, chaotic work environment, lack of support, impatience, phones that ring off the hook and money hungry culture. PDS utilizes a useless, untrained Call Center for overflow calls. They will answer calls and attempt to either call the office right back, send an email without resolution or remotely overbook the schedule, while being unaware of each office’s dynamic. You will be expected to reach out to those patients to reschedule and clean up the Call Centers mess, only to be yelled at by frustrated patients. Patients are often frustrated for good reason. Mostly due to mediocre dentistry, misdiagnosis, mismanagement of their finances, claims filed incorrectly, missing crucial documentation, or insurance not filed at all. If you manage to survive a few months you will hear or experience countless broken promises and faltered plans among other things. You will encounter a mixture of good and terrible Dentist's & Managers. The terrible Dentists & Managers are allowed to be unprofessional and disrespect colleagues if they're making their projected goals ($$$). The good Dentists & Managers are professional, but miserable within the PDS construct. HR is aware of all the mess but will disclose everything you confided in them to the very same people you are complaining about. So don't bother, nothing is confidential, and nothing changes. Anything you say, can and will be held against you within their walls. So, choose your words wisely amongst colleagues. The people at the top only care about making money; not about professionalism, work environment, patient care, employee well being, work life balance etc. If you get pregnant, have to take time off or get sick, terrible things will be said about you. At some point you will hear or be told by Doctors/Management, they have a business to run and people are replaceable. If you don't have a strong sense of self, you may question your worth. Almost everyone is over stressed, over worked, undervalued and under paid; unless you're an Owner Doctor, Manager of a high grossing office, Regional Manager, Regional Investor, or the CEO. There are enough unprofessional, unethical, and alarming situations within this company to make your jaw drop. If you have ever worked in Dentistry, all of this will be apparent within your first week. So, if you're feeling desperate for a job, give it a go, but you will remember this review. I tried to warn you.

Pros

Was close to home and closed on the weekends. My team was wonderful, honest, and hard working.

Cons

Male dominated environment that acted highly inappropriate toward woman with jokes and advances. The structure was a dental office franchise even though they claimed it was not so the ability to do the job well was impossible since the dentist was in charge but wasn't at the same time. Communication and the instructions on doing the job were very un clear. It was a high pressure retail sales job disguised as a dental office. They wanted you to sell sell sell the expensive treatment and get customers to sign up for their credit card products or payment plans.

Pros

I unfortunately can't think of any positives about working for this company except you are given a paycheck. Even that is only some what of a pro because the pay is low in comparison to other companies in the area.

Cons

There is no work life balance with the company. You will be given a huge workload and no time to unwind from it. There are only 6 paid holidays and not enough time off. They only give government required holidays such as 4th of July, Christmas and Thanksgiving. You don't get MLK, President's Day, Day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, etc because "employees need to be around at all times to support the offices." There are vacation days, but these are limited, especially limited if you are a non-exempt employee. This company claims to follow Christian values, but how they treat their employees isn't how Christ would teach employees. This to me is the most disappointing thing about this company as I am a Christian and thought I would be around others who followed Christ's values. Instead it feels like I'm in hell. If you ask some about Christ's values they list as company values, they look at you like you are crazy. After laying off thousands, the attitude of those left were to live in fear of another layoff and then managers adopted an attitude of be thankful you have a job during the pandemic a.k.a let's treat you badly because we can. When you join, they will try to sell you on how you will make such a huge impact for dentists and the pay is lower to support the office development. After you join, you discover the company's business model is built on selling dental services people don't need such as crowns. I don't think Christ would be thrilled with them selling services people don't truly need. Before COVID, the office environment had some major downsides. The parking lot fills up and then you're stuck parking at a hotel and walking half a mile to the office. The office also requires a dress code and professional attire at all times. You are allowed to wear jeans on Fridays, but ONLY if you wear a Pacific Dental Services T-shirt.