A dental chief operating officer runs the daily work of every office in the group and the central call center. The COO leads the regional managers, writes the routines each office follows, and moves bought offices onto the group's software and payroll.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, outpatient health care providers · BLS, May 2025
You'll run day-to-day operations across all of our practices and the central call center. The regional operations managers report to you. You build the systems every practice uses, from schedule templates to compliance checklists, so patients get the same experience at any location, and you bring newly acquired practices onto those systems.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Lead the regional operations managers and set the goals each practice works toward.
Write and keep current the group's standards: schedule templates, morning huddle format, check-in and checkout, and collection policies.
Run the central call center and decide how new-patient calls, recall calls and practice overflow are handled.
Move acquired practices onto [your practice management software], group policies and payroll with a written integration plan.
Negotiate supply, dental lab and equipment contracts with the CFO.
Oversee OSHA, infection control and HIPAA programs in every practice with the Clinical Director and HR Manager.
Plan capacity at each practice: dentist days, hygiene days, open chairs and staffing.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Review yesterday's production, collections and schedule fill by practice, and follow up where numbers slipped.
Meet with regional operations managers about staffing gaps, patient complaints and practices behind plan.
Check call center results: calls answered, new patients booked and calls lost.
Solve vendor, equipment and software problems that affect more than one practice.
Work with the Clinical Director on issues that touch both care and operations, such as how much time each hygiene visit type gets.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Production against plan by practice: [your target].
Group collections against production: [your target].
Hygiene schedule fill across the group: [your target].
New patients booked by the call center: [your target].
Staff turnover by practice: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[8+] years of operations leadership, including [3+] years over multiple healthcare or service locations.
Experience running appointment-based practices that bill insurance, such as dental, medical or therapy offices.
Builds and reads reports from [your practice management software] or similar systems.
Working knowledge of OSHA and HIPAA rules for dental offices.
Has led managers who lead teams, and coaches them without doing their jobs for them.
6. Preferred Experience
COO, VP of operations or regional director experience at a dental service organization (DSO).
Has led the integration of acquired practices.
Has set up or run a patient call center.
Has standardized schedule templates or huddle routines across several practices.
7. Physical Requirements
Work at a computer for long stretches, and walk through practices during site visits.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Central office in [city], with frequent practice visits.
Regular driving to every practice, with occasional overnight travel [frequency].
Business hours [Monday through Friday], with evening or weekend calls when a practice has an urgent problem.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new chief operating officer gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
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The systems a dental COO builds have to respect dentists' clinical judgment, health privacy law and infection control rules, in offices that each did things their own way before the group bought them.
Standards stop where clinical judgment starts
Schedule templates, visit lengths and production goals shape what dentists can do in the chair. Some states draw a line here. Arizona's business registration law, for one, gives a registered dental business no right to set policies that may interfere with a dentist's clinical judgment. So the COO writes these standards with the Clinical Director. They set the routine for every office. They don't dictate care. Source: Arizona Revised Statutes § 32-1213: business entities offering dental services.
One call center answers for every office
Call center staff open patient records from every office, so the HIPAA program has to cover them too. HIPAA calls for a named privacy official and a named security official. It also calls for a risk analysis of electronic patient records. Each new hire gets privacy training within a reasonable time of starting. The COO makes sure the call center is part of that plan. Source: 45 CFR § 164.530: HIPAA privacy administrative requirements (Cornell LII).
Bloodborne pathogen rules reach every operatory
OSHA's bloodborne pathogens rule calls for a written exposure control plan wherever staff are expected to contact blood or other infectious material, which in dental work includes saliva. The plan is reviewed at least yearly and when tasks or jobs change. Each review records which safer devices, such as safety syringes, were looked at and used. Staff who treat patients must be asked for input, and the plan notes that they were. The COO runs this review groupwide, so a better device found in one office reaches the rest. Source: OSHA 29 CFR 1910.1030: Bloodborne pathogens.
Older amalgam separators run out in June 2027
EPA's dental amalgam rule applies to offices that place or remove amalgam and send wastewater to a public sewer. Each needs an amalgam separator, or another device, that meets the rule's standard. A separator put in before June 14, 2017 counts only until June 14, 2027, or until it is replaced, if that is sooner. Offices the group bought are the likely gaps. The COO keeps a list of every office's separator and its install year, and plans replacements with the CFO before the deadline. Source: eCFR: 40 CFR Part 441, dental office point source category.
Capacity is counted in chairs and provider days
A practice can only produce what its open chairs, dentist days and hygiene days allow. The COO decides where to add a hygiene day, when an office needs another associate, and how the call center steers new patients to offices with open time. An empty hygiene hour can't be sold again tomorrow.
How much dental chief operating officers make
The closest BLS group for dental chief operating officers is chief executives. Chief executives who work for outpatient health care providers earned a median of $218,810 a year ($105.20 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s about the same as the $213,990 median for chief executives in all industries. About 6,510 of the 204,350 chief executives in that survey work for outpatient health care providers.
Base salary, with a bonus scored on the numbers the regional managers carry: production against plan, hygiene fill and turnover. Equity shows up mainly in investor-backed groups.
Outpatient health care providers
$218,810$218,810 median Middle half $141,500–$334,610 10th–90th $92,590–$457,510
All industries
$213,990$213,990 median Middle half $129,540–$356,200 10th–90th $75,700–$507,730
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Outpatient health care providers
$92,590
$141,500
$218,810
$334,610
$457,510
All industries
$75,700
$129,540
$213,990
$356,200
$507,730
BLS counts too few chief executives at dental offices for a steady figure, so these figures cover outpatient health care providers. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Has led managers across several sites and holds them to numbers without taking over
Pulls schedule and production reports from practice management software without help
Knows OSHA and HIPAA well enough to spot a gap on an office walk-through
Writes short, repeatable standards for check-in, checkout and the morning huddle
Has run a patient call center or worked closely with one
Teach these on the job
Your schedule templates and how each office uses them
Your acquisition integration checklist
Dental terms and the main procedure categories
Your supply, lab and equipment vendors
Each office's staff, history and local market
Expect schedule and production reports from the practice management system, the call center's phone and call-tracking software, and a compliance calendar for OSHA training, HIPAA reviews and sterilizer spore tests. Offices on different systems slow all of this down, and candidates who have merged systems before will ask about it.
None of these targets come filled in. Start from the last twelve months at each office, then raise them in steps the regional managers agree they can reach.
Production against plan by practice
Each office's monthly production from the practice management system against its budget. Split dentist production from hygiene production, since each has its own fixes.
Group collections against production
For the group and for each office, compare the month's collections with its net production. A falling rate points to claim problems or patient portions not collected at checkout.
Hygiene schedule fill across the group
Booked hygiene hours divided by available hygiene hours, after same-day cancellations and no-shows. Pull it weekly and compare offices.
New patients booked by the call center
New patient appointments the call center booked, from the phone system and the schedule. Also track how many of those patients showed up, and calls that ended without a booking.
Staff turnover by practice
Team members who left in the period divided by average headcount, by office and by job. Get exit reasons from the HR Manager and compare offices under the same regional manager.
Most days start with yesterday's numbers for each office: production, collections and how full the schedules were. Then come calls with regional managers about open shifts and unhappy patients. The COO checks call center results and fixes vendor or software problems that hit more than one office. Bigger projects include new schedule templates and moving a bought office onto group systems.
How much does a dental chief operating officer make?
Chief executives who work for outpatient health care providers earned a median of $218,810 a year ($105.20 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $141,500 and $334,610 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and bonus terms.
How does a dental COO's job differ from a regional operations manager's?
The regional manager fixes offices; the COO fixes the system. A regional manager covers a handful of offices and coaches their practice managers. The COO writes the standards every region follows and runs the call center. Safety and privacy programs belong to the COO too, shared with the Clinical Director and HR Manager, along with the plan for how new offices join the group.
Does a dental COO need clinical experience?
Not years in the chair, but a good grasp of clinical limits. A COO should know which tasks your assistants and hygienists may legally do in your state, how instruments move through sterilization, and why a dentist may push back on a schedule template. Some COOs learned this as hygienists or assistants. Others learned it on the business side of medical or dental offices.
How does a dental COO bring a newly acquired practice into the group?
With a written plan that starts before closing. The plan sets when the office moves to the group's software, payroll and benefits. It covers how fee schedules and insurance credentialing change, what happens to the selling dentist's schedule, and who needs training. Tell the staff early what will and won't change. Offices lose people when they hear about the sale secondhand.
What should a dental COO job ad include?
Lead with the size of the job: how many offices, which states, and the central call center. Then the pace of growth, such as how many practices you expect to buy each year, and how much travel it takes. Say who owns OSHA and HIPAA compliance today. Say whether the regional managers are in place or still to be hired.
