Staff labor is almost always the biggest single category in an endodontic practice's overhead, which makes it the first place to look when overhead runs high, and the easiest place to jump to the wrong conclusion.
The benchmark is 25 to 30 percent of collections, measured all-in: wages, payroll taxes, health insurance, retirement match, and bonuses. If you only count base wages, you will think you are under benchmark when you are not.
Being above the range is not automatically a problem. A practice that just hired ahead of a second chair, or one carrying a team through a slow referral quarter, will read high temporarily. The question is whether it is a season or a structure.
It becomes a structural problem when staffing was set for a production level you no longer run, when roles overlap, or when overtime is covering a scheduling problem rather than real demand.
The clean way to read it is production per staff member against the labor percentage together. High labor cost with high production per person is a growth cost. High labor cost with low production per person is a staffing problem worth solving.