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“Hey, I need to take some time off next month.” It’s a simple ask from your employee. For you, it means looking at an already-booked schedule and wondering who’s going to see those patients while they’re gone.
That’s why we think PTO and staffing coverage belong in the same conversation, not two separate ones. Offering paid vacation and sick time supports your team, but it only works if there’s a plan for what happens while they’re away. Temporary dental staffing can bridge that gap, giving employees the time off they need while keeping patients on the schedule.
⏱️ In a hurry? Here’s the short answer.
The ADA’s 2026 State of the U.S. Dental Economy found that practices reporting adequate staffing were more likely to offer benefits such as paid vacation, paid sick time, and CE or professional development.
That raises a practical question. Who covers the patients while a team member is gone? For a planned vacation, practices can arrange temporary coverage ahead of time. For unexpected sick days and emergencies, having a staffing option ready means you can respond without automatically canceling or rescheduling patients.
Make coverage part of your PTO strategy from the start. Waiting until someone’s already out just adds pressure to an already tight moment.
Key takeaways
- Paid vacation and sick time matter, but you also need a plan for covering the schedule when someone’s away.
- The ADA found that adequately staffed practices were more likely to offer paid vacation, paid sick time, and CE or professional development.
- Planned PTO and unexpected call-outs require different coverage strategies.
- If you know a vacation is coming, start looking for temporary coverage early.
- For unexpected absences, having a backup staffing option already in place can take some of the pressure off you.
- Temporary coverage can help keep patients on your schedule while your team takes well-deserved time off.
Table of Contents
Why paid time off matters to dental practices
For a dental practice, offering PTO is only part of the equation. Employees also need to be able to take that time off without feeling like they’re leaving their coworkers or patients in a bind.
The ADA’s Q1 2026 State of the U.S. Dental Economy found that practices reporting adequate staffing were more likely to offer several employee benefits than practices reporting inadequate staffing.
For example, 92% of practices in the adequate-staffing group reported offering paid vacation, compared with 75.9% of practices in the inadequate-staffing group. Paid sick time was reported by 80.6% of adequately staffed practices compared with 66.7% of inadequately staffed practices. CE, professional development funds, or time were also more common among adequately staffed practices: 77.2% compared with 64.8%.
These numbers show an association between staffing levels and benefit offerings. They don’t establish that one causes the other. What they do reinforce is that benefits and staffing are connected parts of the employee experience.
There’s also a less obvious cost to skipping PTO. Employees who can’t take sick days sometimes come in anyway, risking the spread of illness to patients and coworkers. And employees who consistently can’t take a real vacation tend toward burnout over time, which tends to show up in turnover long before it ever reaches a resignation letter.
The real challenge: patients are already on the schedule
It’s rarely about affordability. What we hear from our Sales team is that when you hesitate to grant time off, the real issue is almost always the burden of rescheduling, especially when a hygienist’s appointments were booked six months in advance.
You might genuinely want to give an employee time off. The bigger concern is usually what happens to the patients already scheduled that day.
A hygienist may have a full schedule booked six months in advance. If that hygienist takes a vacation, you may have to:
- Reschedule patients
- Leave appointments unfilled
- Ask other team members to absorb the workload
- Find temporary coverage
None of those options is ideal in every situation.
And when the absence is unexpected, the pressure can be even higher. An employee may wake up sick or have a family emergency while the day’s patients are already on the books. The practice still has to decide what to do with those appointments, often with very little time to make the decision.
If you want your team to use their time off, you need a way to keep the practice moving while they’re gone.
What we’re seeing in dental practices
In conversations with dental practices, we often hear the same thing. Supporting PTO was never the hard part. Keeping the schedule intact while someone’s away is.
A planned vacation gives you time to prepare. A family emergency doesn’t.
We’ve seen practices reach out only a week before planned coverage is needed, which can make the search more stressful than it needs to be. We’ve also seen offices need an RDH with almost no notice after a family emergency or unexpected call-out.
The offices that handle these situations most smoothly still get caught off guard by staffing gaps just like everyone else. What sets them apart is knowing exactly what they’ll do when one happens.
Knowing where you’ll turn when coverage is needed doesn’t require a temp on permanent standby, just a plan you can reach for the moment it comes up.
Planned PTO vs. unexpected absences
Not every coverage need should be handled the same way.
Planned vacation
When a hygienist knows they’ll be away, the practice gains time to prepare, which makes all the difference.
Our Sales team regularly sees practices begin looking for temporary coverage weeks to months before a planned vacation.
That lead time gives the practice more opportunity to find someone who fits the schedule instead of waiting until the last few days and scrambling to fill the opening.
If you already know when an employee will be away, start thinking about coverage as soon as you know the dates.
Unexpected sick days and emergencies
You can’t plan for every absence.
A family emergency, sudden illness, or other unexpected situation can leave a practice needing coverage the next day.
An established backup plan means you already have somewhere to turn the moment a team member can’t come in. The schedule stays full; you’re just not scrambling from zero.
💡☁️ Cloud Tip: Keep a short mental list of temps you’ve worked with before, even ones you haven’t formally favorited. When an emergency hits, you’ll already know who to message first, rather than starting a cold search.
What happens when a dental practice can’t cover PTO?
When you can’t cover an employee’s absence, you generally have to choose between leaving appointments unfilled, rescheduling patients, redistributing the workload, or finding temporary coverage.
Each option can affect the practice differently.
Patients may have to move appointments they’ve been waiting for. Other team members may have to take on additional work. A hygiene column may go unused.
And the impact isn’t limited to staffing. The ADA reported that inflation-adjusted consumer dental spending in January 2026 was 11% above its pre-pandemic level, while reimbursement rates aren’t keeping pace with rising costs, which the ADA Health Policy Institute calls a “fiscal squeeze” on dental practices. When patients are already seeking care, and appointments are already booked, having sufficient staffing flexibility to keep those appointments can matter for both patient access and practice production.
The real goal is flexibility. One person’s absence shouldn’t have to disrupt the entire schedule or fall entirely on an already stretched team.
💡☁️ Cloud Tip: An unfilled shift doesn’t just cost you that day’s production. If a patient reschedules weeks out because of it, you’re absorbing that gap twice: once now, and once later when they finally get back on the books.
How dental practices can cover employees on vacation
Temporary dental staffing gives practices another option when a permanent team member is unavailable.
A temporary professional can help cover:
- Planned vacations
- Paid sick days
- Family emergencies
- Unexpected call-outs
- Short-term staffing gaps
- Periods of increased patient demand
That can allow the permanent employee to take the time off they need without automatically requiring the practice to cancel the patients they were scheduled to see. Temporary coverage can also prevent the remaining team from having to absorb every absence.
Temporary coverage exists to support your permanent team, giving employees the flexibility to take real time off without the entire schedule falling apart. That’s the staffing flexibility worth building into your practice before you need it.
How to plan for PTO coverage
A coverage strategy doesn’t have to be complicated.
1. Plan ahead for scheduled PTO
If you know when someone will be out, start looking for coverage early. Check the staffing calendar alongside the patient schedule to see which days will create the biggest gaps.
2. Have a backup for unexpected absences
You can’t predict a sick day or family emergency, but you can decide ahead of time where you’ll look for coverage.
3. Don’t make the rest of your team absorb every absence
Temporary coverage can give your team another option besides taking on extra patients or responsibilities.
A real-world example of last-minute coverage
One Cloud Dentistry Sales team member shared an example of a practice that needed an RDH for the very next day after an unexpected call-out.
The office offered $80 per hour and found an RDH through Cloud Dentistry for the following day. That meant the practice could continue seeing its scheduled patients rather than completely rearranging the day’s schedule.
It’s a simple example, but it illustrates why having a coverage option ready can matter when something unexpected happens.
Results and availability will vary by location, role, timing, and the professionals available to book.
💡☁️ Cloud Tip: If a temp who covers your PTO gap turns out to be great, favorite their profile so they’re one click away the next time you need coverage.
What makes practices comfortable bringing in a temporary professional?
“I don’t know this person. How can I just let them treat my patients?” That’s the real hesitation for a lot of practices, more than whether they know they need the coverage.
One Cloud Dentistry Sales team member described onboarding a Dallas practice that needed help covering additional hygiene demand. The dentist was initially hesitant about bringing in a professional they didn’t already know.
Seeing professional profiles, peer reviews, Cloud Dentistry’s vetting process, and background-check information helped address those concerns. The practice continued using Cloud Dentistry when employees needed vacation coverage or called out sick.
💡☁️ Cloud Tip: If you can only check one thing before booking a new temp, make it reviews from other offices. A profile can look complete on paper and still not tell you how someone actually works with a team.
If your practice hasn’t used temps before, it’s fair to have questions. You may want to know who you’re bringing into the office, what experience they have, whether they’ve been vetted, and what other practices have thought of working with them.
Frequently asked questions
How can a dental practice cover an employee’s vacation?
You can use temporary dental professionals to cover planned absences, allowing your permanent employees to take vacation while keeping your scheduled patients on the books. Starting your search as soon as you know the vacation dates gives you the widest pool of available professionals to choose from, rather than settling for whoever happens to be free at the last minute.
How can dental practices handle unexpected sick days?
A temporary staffing option gives you another way to respond when an employee calls out unexpectedly, particularly when patients are already scheduled. Having a platform or backup plan in place before the call-out means you’re looking for coverage rather than starting from scratch during an already stressful morning.
Why is planning ahead important for dental staffing?
Starting your temporary staffing search early gives you more time to find an available professional who fits your dates and needs. Last-minute coverage can be more difficult to arrange, since the pool of professionals available on short notice is naturally smaller than the pool available weeks in advance.
Can temporary dental staffing support employee benefits?
Temporary staffing can make it more practical to offer benefits such as paid vacation and sick time, since you have an option to maintain coverage while employees are away. The ADA’s 2026 data show that practices reporting adequate staffing were more likely to report offering paid vacation and paid sick time, although the data don’t establish that staffing or benefits directly cause one another.
The final bite
Your team shouldn’t have to choose between taking time off and keeping the practice running.
If someone has a vacation coming up, plan for it. If someone calls out unexpectedly, know where you can turn. And when your team can actually use the benefits you’ve promised them, that’s good for the people who keep your practice running every day.
Cloud Dentistry can help fill those temporary gaps so your employees can take the time they need without automatically putting the patient schedule on hold. New to our platform? Create your free account today, so your team can be out of the office without your production walking out the door with them.
Continue learning
Paid time off is one piece of a broader workforce strategy. Explore practical ways to build a stronger dental team through hiring, retention, staffing flexibility, and professional development.
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