What specifically makes working in So Cal a 100x harder? Because it is so saturated and you will have to do a ton of marketing? Can you please elaborate on this. I am a 1st year D student and am interested in practicing in California. Thanks.
It is harder here in CA because of the oversaturation of dentists. Most employers (both dental chains and private practice owners) no longer pay their associate dentists the guaranteed per diem rate because they all realize that many new grads are in desperate need of associate jobs. Most employers pay the associates the percentage of collection. If you are not able to produce or if your boss is not able to collect (from insurance companies), you won't get paid.
A friend of mine, who owns 2 GP practices, posted a job ad on Craiglist and he received nearly 100 phone calls from dentists who wanted to work for him.
Many new grads have to work for the dental chains. The chain, where I current work at, pays the associate dentists 23% of the collection. Most of the patients you see at the dental chains have HMO plans, which pay the dentist zero for cleaning, zero for fillings, $90 for a molar endo etc. When you first start, the chain manager gives you a stack of insurance applications to sign. And it usually takes a few months for the insurance companies to accept you as their provider. During this waiting period, you are not allowed to treat the patients….you can only see the cash patients. So you basically sit there all day long doing nothing and not get paid.
Just last week, the managing dentist, who works at the same chain with me, did 6 amalgam fillings on this one kid so I could start the ortho treatment on him. Normally, these 6 fillings are done at several appointments because this patient has HMO, which pays zero for amalgam fillings. But the company wanted to make $$$ from ortho tx; therefore, this managing GP had to do all 6 fillings in one appointment and she did not get paid for doing these fillings.
At least in ortho, we get paid for doing the work even when the patient has the HMO plan.
Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. That's just the reality. If you still want to live and practice in CA, try to borrow for dental school as little as possible. Work for nobody but yourself. Many of my GP friends who graduated from USC and LLU 10-15 years ago with 200-250k debt are doing extremely well here. The GP, whom I mentioned on the 2nd paragraph, graduated from LLU one year before me. He paid off his $600k house before his 40th birthday. Until last year, he still drove the same Tacoma truck. He finally got rid of the truck and guess what he bought? A 2-year old Subaru sport wagon so he can mount his snow board on the roof. He is very simple guy....that's how he managed to pay off all his debts.
