Every clinical role in a dental practice comes with a license, a certification, or an advanced degree. The office manager who coordinates everything those clinicians do? She learns it on the job, alone, and owns the outcome regardless.

In this episode of The Dental Handoff, Dr. Kelly Tanner sits down with Savanah Carlson, MAADOM, Director of U.S. Partners and Learning Programs at MaxAssist, former Director of Member Services at AADOM, and a dental practice management professional who has held every admin role dentistry has. She grew from Patient and Social Media Coordinator to Office Manager at Lund Dental Associates in Stoneham, Massachusetts, earned her Fellowship, Mastership, and Diplomate credentials from AADOM, led member services for the 10,000-plus member national association, and now brings that depth of experience to helping dental teams perform at their best through MaxAssist's AI-powered scheduling and admin tools.

The conversation covers what it takes to build a culture that is genuinely healthy rather than performed, how to anchor a team when everything is pulling it apart, and why the patient experience in any practice is owned entirely by the people at the front, not the people at the chair.

This episode is for dental office managers, hygienists, dentists, and practice owners who want to close the gap between the care they deliver clinically and the experience patients carry home.

In this conversation, you’ll learn:

Why the patient experience begins and ends with the admin team and what that means for how practices should be led
The difference between toxic positivity and a genuinely healthy culture and why most practices cannot tell them apart
What happens when leadership cannot clearly answer why we are seeing these patients
Why communication is an applied science that no dental education pathway actually teaches
How the DISC assessment changes not just how you lead your team but how you talk to patients
The two-question end-of-day habit that costs nothing and builds more trust than most management strategies
What good AI adoption looks like for an admin team and what it looks like when a practice is using it for the wrong reasons
What it means to go after connection first and let everything else build from there

Connect with Savanah Carlson, MAADOM:

MaxAssist: https://maxassist.com/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/savanahmcarlson

Where to Find Dr. Kelly:

Let's Connect! Book a Call today to see how I can help you create high-performance teams, discuss educational programs, or how I can be of assistance.

https://calendly.com/drkellytanner/30min

Visit us at https://www.nextleveldentalhygiene.com