It’s 10 AM. Do you know where your employees are? Aside from being either at their station or not at their station, do you really know who’s on duty today, precisely when they arrived, how many hours they’ve logged so far this week, whether they’re getting overtime right now, and if you’re calculating that all correctly? Perhaps not. With better dental practice time tracking, you would know.
Accurate time tracking isn’t about watching your people like a hawk. It can be helpful that way, sure, but dental practices need a time tracking system that actually works in order to stay legally compliant. Generic time trackers don’t cut it, and pen and paper is a compliance issue waiting to explode. Dental practice time tracking is too complex for most time clocks, so you need one that actually works. Here’s the difference between a time tracking system that almost works, and one that’s built for the way your practice truly functions.
| Our HR Experts’ Advice: – For a dental practice, time tracking has to be flexible enough to work with your schedule, but precise enough to keep you compliant. – If you’ve got employees who like to squeeze out a few extra minutes by clocking in from their car or writing down the “right” time on the spreadsheet, a proper time tracker will keep them accountable. – Even if you don’t think your practice’s time tracking needs are very complex, you’ll still need a comprehensive time tracker that keeps you on the right side of the law. |
Why Dental Office Time Tracking is Different
Imagine a retail business. A lot of the time, multiple people support that day-to-day work, and they almost never deal with medical emergencies. When their shop closes for the day, that’s it. Everyone’s got to go home. A regular time clock works for regular businesses because it’s just not that complicated.
But you’re in dentistry. Your work is specialized and patient care is inherently unpredictable. You rarely have the luxury of locking the door at the stroke of quitting time. HR for Health’s Product Specialist Ryann Danna said, “Not having a system that can accommodate your practice can leave you tracking times on your own. That can lead to human error and employees not being paid appropriately. Make sure you’re automating this and using a system that will help you, not go against you.”
For dental practices, correct and compliant time tracking must be flexible when:
- Patient care drives everything. And they’re not always so punctual. If a hygienist stays late to finish a cleaning and an assistant arrives early to set up surgical equipment, they’ve got to log those hours.
- Emergencies happen. You might not have a 24-hour urgent care clinic, but things do happen, and emergencies never respect your schedule. A typical punch clock can’t account for that kind of last-second flexibility.
- Schedules shift. If you don’t have a hygienist on staff that day, you can’t do cleanings. If your endodontist isn’t around, guess who’s not getting a root canal? You’ll need to find the right people to cover, and that could mean paying overtime or bringing in temporary help.
- Per-diem dentists, contractors, and multiple pay rates collide. All of those things can make your practice run more smoothly, but they also make your time tracking a huge headache. Generic time trackers can’t keep up with it all.
You have more than one location. As your practice grows, compliance gets more complicated. You’ll have to follow the laws wherever your practice is located, and you’ll have to find a way to track time accurately, even when you can’t be there in person.
Dental Practice Time Tracking Must-Haves
“A lot of times we hear, ‘I’ve been doing it like this for years!’ or ‘This is what the previous owner did so I thought it was correct.’ Trust me, most of the time it isn’t,” Ryann said. So forget the pen and paper method. Spreadsheets and punch clocks aren’t much better. Effective dental time clock software addresses the specific operational needs of dental practices while staying automatically compliant. When picking a new time tracker for your dental practice, look for:
- Easy clock-in, clock-out processes
- Seamless integration with your other systems
- Secure logins and data safety
- Mobile accessibility with pre-approved location stamps
- Automated break and meal period reminders
- Compliance alerts if you miss something
- Constant law compliance with automatic updates
- Multi-location time tracking capabilities
- Role-based permissions to the dashboard
- Real-time reporting and payroll sync
- Accurate overtime calculation
- Audit trails and reporting for compliance
Creating Paper Trails and Staying State-Compliant
For some dental practices, time tracking might be more straightforward than all this. Maybe you have just one location where nobody has multiple rates of pay and overtime is uncommon. In either case, you’ll still need to build in accountability.
“It is hard to keep employees accountable if there is no documentation of when employees are scheduled to work and they’re not clocking in,” said Ryann. “With HR for Health you’re able to set up attendance tracking where you can add a tardy threshold for employees. If they clock in after that threshold you will be alerted to that instance, which also serves as documentation.”
She added, “Maybe they were stuck in traffic, maybe there’s some excuse. But at least you have that documentation there in case you ever need it in the future, especially if a violation is needed. Or if you’re headed down the road to termination, you’ll have that documentation and that transparency in place with the employee.”
Compliance requirements vary significantly across different states, and a lot of those employment laws are related to time tracking. For example, California has strict meal and rest break requirements, and New York’s overtime calculations are very specific. These laws update more often than most people think, and if your time tracker doesn’t automatically keep up with the laws, neither does your compliance.
Get Time Tracking Right with HR for Health
We’ve worked with thousands of health and dental practices across the country. Whenever we find out that they’re still using pen and paper time tracking, relying on generic punch clocks, or letting accountability slide, all we see are red flags for risk. We designed HR for Health’s time tracker specifically for dental and healthcare practices like yours, even if you have multiple locations or you’re in a state with tricky laws. HR for Health always keeps your practice compliant and your people accountable. Better yet, it syncs directly with payroll, so there’s less of a chance you’ll make math mistakes.
Ask our HR specialists about better time tracking compliance, or get a demo to see what the HR for Health time clock hype is all about.
