2023 Dental Salary Survey

[AONLINE]

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https://cdn.dentalpost.net/web/SalarySurvey_2023_AllPositions.pdf

I came across this interesting report and thought I should share it with everyone here. I know dentist compensation is a question that frequently comes up in this forum by dental and pre-dental students, so I found these numbers on page 9 and 10 of the report. To sum it up, GP owners have an average income of $290k and a median of $250k, while GP associates' average is $196k and median $180k. Some specialists numbers can be found on page 7 of the report. Thoughts/comments everyone?

 

[Ryxndek]

Interesting MN isn’t anywhere on this list that I can see. Or maybe I’m going blind 🤣

 

[Allthebags]

Would be interesting to see the specialist specific numbers

 

[charlestweed]

Associate dentists make a lot more now than in the past. In the 90s, the average incomes for associate GPs were way below 6-figure…..in the $70-80k range. 10-15 years ago, the average incomes were in the low 6-figure…..$120-130k range. Now, associate dentists make almost $200k. I wonder why the dentists make a lot more now despite the insurance pay cuts and increase in competition (due to opening of new schools)? Is it because they work more efficiently…..treat more patients (see more medicaid patients) per day? Is it because more of them work for corp offices and corp offices generally pay more than private offices? Is it because they treat more difficult cases and refer fewer cases out to the specialists?

 

[redchesus]

Associate dentists make a lot more now than in the past. In the 90s, the average incomes for associate GPs were way below 6-figure…..in the $70-80k range. 10-15 years ago, the average incomes were in the low 6-figure…..$120-130k range. Now, associate dentists make almost $200k. I wonder why the dentists make a lot more now despite the insurance pay cuts and increase in competition (due to opening of new schools)? Is it because they work more efficiently…..treat more patients (see more medicaid patients) per day? Is it because more of them work for corp offices and corp offices generally pay more than private offices? Is it because they treat more difficult cases and refer fewer cases out to the specialists?

Actually if you adjust for inflation $120K in year 2000 is about $200K now... so the increase in salary isn't that drastic

 

[Thehighwind87]

Dentists have always been making about 150-200k give or take...

But do you notice something?

The "have always been making" comment is really really important.

It means that dentistry does not keep up with inflation. In 10 or so years, you will still see dentists making 150-200k give or take....while inflation has eroded the dollar and made YOUR purchasing power less.

In 2010 dentists were making 150-200k give or take...while starter houses were 200-400k. Today 2023 dentists are still making 150-200k give or take while starter houses are 500K. Houses more expensive, food more expensive, tuition more expensive. Guess where everything will be in another 10 years...prob dentists still making 150-200k give or take.

 

[LFA20]

Associate dentists make a lot more now than in the past. In the 90s, the average incomes for associate GPs were way below 6-figure…..in the $70-80k range. 10-15 years ago, the average incomes were in the low 6-figure…..$120-130k range. Now, associate dentists make almost $200k. I wonder why the dentists make a lot more now despite the insurance pay cuts and increase in competition (due to opening of new schools)? Is it because they work more efficiently…..treat more patients (see more medicaid patients) per day? Is it because more of them work for corp offices and corp offices generally pay more than private offices? Is it because they treat more difficult cases and refer fewer cases out to the specialists?

Well things are a lot more expensive now than back in the 90s

 

[charlestweed]

Well things are a lot more expensive than back in the 90s

Yes, things are more expensive now. It's true that today dentists have lower purchasing power than the older dentists who graduated in the 90s. But at least the average dental incomes don't stay the same....at the 90s' level......nor at the mid 2000s' level. At least dentists see the salary increase. Isn't this better seeing no increase at all?

 

[charlestweed]

Dentists have always been making about 150-200k give or take...

But do you notice something?

The "have always been making" comment is really really important.

It means that dentistry does not keep up with inflation. In 10 or so years, you will still see dentists making 150-200k give or take....while inflation has eroded the dollar and made YOUR purchasing power less.

In 2010 dentists were making 150-200k give or take...while starter houses were 200-400k. Today 2023 dentists are still making 150-200k give or take while starter houses are 500K. Houses more expensive, food more expensive, tuition more expensive. Guess where everything will be in another 10 years...prob dentists still making 150-200k give or take.

Everybody is affected by the inflation. As a result, everybody has to work harder and longer to save for their retirements. The increases in salaries cannot keep up with inflation rate. Dentists, doctors, engineers, nurses etc are not immune from this.

That’s why I have to keep working to save for my own retirement. I plan to give each of my kids 2 houses…one to live in and one to rent out. Hopefully, the passive income from the rental property helps offset the inflation that my kids will face. That’s not spoiling my kids. We, older generation, have robbed our kids with excessive borrowing and spending and money printing. The late senator, John McCain, once called it a “generational theft”. None of these is their fault. And I, as an individual, have zero control over this inflation rate. The only thing I can do for my kids to help negate this inflation is to give them back some of what I (the older generation) have “stolen” from them. Hopefully, my kids will do the same for their own kids.

 

[Thehighwind87]

Everybody is affected by the inflation. As a result, everybody has to work harder and longer to save for their retirements. The increases in salaries cannot keep up with inflation rate. Dentists, doctors, engineers, nurses etc are not immune from this.

That’s why I have to keep working to save for my own retirement. I plan to give each of my kids 2 houses…one to live in and one to rent out. Hopefully, the passive income from the rental property helps offset the inflation that my kids will face. That’s not spoiling my kids. We, older generation, have robbed our kids with excessive borrowing and spending and money printing. The late senator, John McCain, once called it a “generational theft”. None of these is their fault. And I, as an individual, have zero control over this inflation rate. The only thing I can do for my kids to help negate this inflation is to give them back some of what I (the older generation) have “stolen” from them. Hopefully, my kids will do the same for their own kids.

Uhh dentists are locked into their salaries unless you go OON or FFS which is only a select few. Thats why their salaries have been stagnant. Engineers/nurses have a better time negotiating their salary as they can easily job hop. Trust me my wife and in-laws are comp sci/engineers. Easy 10-20% pay bumps this past year due to inflation and alot of job offers that are offering more then that.

Long story made short. I wouldn't be surprised to see in 10 years dentists still making the same amount from 2009...2023...2033 while the other professions get adjustments to their wages due to inflation.

 

[charlestweed]

Uhh dentists are locked into their salaries unless you go OON or FFS which is only a select few. Thats why their salaries have been stagnant. Engineers/nurses have a better time negotiating their salary as they can easily job hop. Trust me my wife and in-laws are comp sci/engineers. Easy 10-20% pay bumps this past year due to inflation and alot of job offers that are offering more then that.

Nothing is easy in life. When you negotiate for higher pay or get a new better pay job, expect to work harder and assume more responsibility. To get a better pay job, you may have to move your family (sell your house and deal with other hassles of moving) to another city/state. If you quit, the employer should have no problem finding a younger more hungry grad, who is willing to get paid less and has more up-to-date knowledge, to replace you. There are engineers everywhere. Every 4 yr college pumps out a few hundreds of engineers every year. There are plenty of engineers who work crazily long hours and outside of their workplaces. Google provides free meals and allows to bring dogs to work because they don't want the employees to leave the workplace.

In the tech world, you have to constantly learn to improve your skills and knowledge in order to maintain good paying job. You don't have to do that with dentistry because it is a repetitive job. The more years you work in dentistry, the more efficient dentist you will become. Even with insurance pay cuts, dentists can still increase their own salaries by treating more patients per day (by being more efficient).....or by taking on more challenging cases (because of more yrs of experience) and referring fewer cases to the specialists.

Long story made short. I wouldn't be surprised to see in 10 years dentists still making the same amount from 2009...2023...2033 while the other professions get adjustments to their wages due to inflation.

According to the survey, that AOLINE gave us, the dentists' incomes have increased significantly from the mid 2000s to the present time. Hopefully, the average dentists' incomes will pass the 200k mark 5-10 yrs from now.

 

[charlestweed]

This guy shares a story of his life as a software engineer. He admitted that he gets paid very well as a software engineer…comparable (or even better than) to what many health professionals make and he didn’t have to take out a lot of school loans. But to get to where he’s at now, he had to work like a dog. And he continues to work hard until this very day in order to maintain the skill level so he can continue to earn his good salary......and makes his job irreplaceable.

 

[Thehighwind87]

This guy shares a story of his life as a software engineer. He admitted that he gets paid very well as a software engineer…comparable (or even better than) to what many health professionals make and he didn’t have to take out a lot of school loans. But to get to where he’s at now, he had to work like a dog. And he continues to work hard until this very day in order to maintain the skill level so he can continue to earn his good salary......and makes his job irreplaceable.

That’s nice but the fact still stands that unless you are ffs or oon, you are pretty much salary capped.

 

[charlestweed]

That’s nice but the fact still stands that unless you are ffs or oon, you are pretty much salary capped.

The only thing/person that puts a cap on your salary is you. As a dentist owner, you can hire hygienist, associate dentists, and in-house specialists to work for you…..and the sky’s the limit. ColdFront only works 2 days a week and he makes way more than what I make working 4.5 days/wk. If your office doesn’t have a lot of patients because you are in a competitive market and/or have poor communication/marketing skills, you can still increase your daily production by booking as many patients as you can possibly handle (instead of having a light schedule and sitting around doing nothing). And then use the other free days of the week to work for someone else (or at a second office if you have 2) to supplement your income. If there is an income limit in dentistry, then why do we see so many dental corps continue to expand their businesses and pay their associate dentists more than what they did in the past?

You can be successful in any field if you work hard. There’s no such thing as get rich quick.

 

[Thehighwind87]

The only thing/person that puts a cap on your salary is you. As a dentist owner, you can hire hygienist, associate dentists, and in-house specialists to work for you…..and the sky’s the limit. ColdFront only works 2 days a week and he makes way more than what I make working 4.5 days/wk. If your office doesn’t have a lot of patients because you are in a competitive market and/or have poor communication/marketing skills, you can still increase your daily production by booking as many patients as you can possibly handle (instead of having a light schedule and sitting around doing nothing). And then use the other free days of the week to work for someone else (or at a second office if you have 2) to supplement your income. If there is an income limit in dentistry, then why do we see so many dental corps continue to expand their businesses and pay their associate dentists more than what they did in the past?

You can be successful in any field if you work hard. There’s no such thing as get rich quick.

I mean I don't disagree with what you said. I mean the sky is the limit, I can do 6 days a week, I can open 12 hours a day, I can moonlight at other offices, I can cut my hygiene to 30 min appts and have assisted hygiene. Etc.

The bottom line is you have to work harder for less as time goes on.

Regarding corps, corps have negotiating power with PPOs, they can also buy in bulk cutting costs and squeezing private practices. The solo practice has been and is dwindling. I do foresee corps taking over, and I think that is fine. I can def work corp part time for health insurance and semi-retire. I'm A-Ok with that. In fact- that is my future retirement that I personally foresee.

 

[charlestweed]

I mean I don't disagree with what you said. I mean the sky is the limit, I can do 6 days a week, I can open 12 hours a day, I can moonlight at other offices, I can cut my hygiene to 30 min appts and have assisted hygiene. Etc.

The bottom line is you have to work harder for less as time goes on.

Regarding corps, corps have negotiating power with PPOs, they can also buy in bulk cutting costs and squeezing private practices. The solo practice has been and is dwindling. I do foresee corps taking over, and I think that is fine. I can def work corp part time for health insurance and semi-retire. I'm A-Ok with that. In fact- that is my future retirement that I personally foresee.

You don’t necessarily have to work harder. Being a more experienced dentist helps you see more patients with much less effort. It takes a new grad an hour to cut a crown prep and it still looks crappy. It takes a veteran dentist 5 minutes to cut the same prep and the margin is smooth. Not every patient needs an hour cleaning. Some patients only need 5 minutes for cleaning because they see dentists every 6 month and have good oral hygiene.

My former roommate/classmate, who is an OS, once told me that medicaid didn’t pay him much but it’s still “easy money” for him because he could extract teeth very fast.

I had kept the same fee for a long time (more than 10 years). Two years ago, I raised the fee to $200 more per case to offset the increase in PPE cost (due to Covid) and in inflation rate. Even with the fee increase, it is still way below what most of my colleagues charge their patients. And yet, I make a lot more (more per day) now than when I first started my office. That’s because I work more efficiently. I see more patients for the same amount time. I put in much less effort now because of the experience that I’ve gained over the years. My daily income is more but my overall income declines because I drastically cut down my work days.

Your income and the amount of work you put into your practice depend on a lot of factors: your clinical experience, your overhead, your management style, doctor-patient relationship etc. At the beginning you may have put in an extra effort to gain the patient’s trust. But once your practice becomes more established, you can chill more. Being overstaffed is another problem that hurts your income big time.

 

[percyeye]

I would have thought owners would make much more than that?

 

[charlestweed]

I would have thought owners would make much more than that?

They probably under-report their earnings so they don’t have to pay too much taxes.😉

 

[deleted923283]

This guy shares a story of his life as a software engineer. He admitted that he gets paid very well as a software engineer…comparable (or even better than) to what many health professionals make and he didn’t have to take out a lot of school loans. But to get to where he’s at now, he had to work like a dog. And he continues to work hard until this very day in order to maintain the skill level so he can continue to earn his good salary......and makes his job irreplaceable.

Having to work long hours with no life for minimal pay in order to get to a place with decent pay and hours? Sounds like residency.

 

[Thehighwind87]

I would have thought owners would make much more than that?

The average practice is you 4 op practice 4 day workweek 700k collections on 60-70% overhead….

210-280k income.

To many people read into the doc making 500k+. They exist but that’s not the norm.

 

[AONLINE]

The average practice is you 4 op practice 4 day workweek 700k collections on 60-70% overhead….

210-280k income.

Those numbers sound about right for the practice that I worked at for a while. 4 ops, M-Th, 1 hygienist, owner doc probably collected 700k doing just crowns and fillings, no EXTs, very few removables or RCTs, he wasn't diagnosing any SRP (all severe perio patients were referred out).

 

[charlestweed]

$131 - 175 per hour (280000 or 210000 ÷ 50 weeks/yr ÷ 4 days/wk ÷ 8hrs/day) is not a bad hourly wage for a dentist.

 

[nufacedentalclinic]

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of May 2020, the median annual salary for dentists was $164,010. Over $208,000 was earned by the top 10 percent, while over $72,840 was earned by the bottom 10 percent.

Factors that can affect dental salaries include geographic location, years of experience, and specialty. For example, dentists in urban areas generally earn more than those in rural areas, and specialists such as orthodontists and oral surgeons typically earn more than general dentists.
Keep in mind that salary data may have changed since the time of the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, so it's important to conduct your own research and stay up to date with current trends in the dental industry.

 

[Roto Picante]

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of May 2020, the median annual salary for dentists was $164,010. Over $208,000 was earned by the top 10 percent, while over $72,840 was earned by the bottom 10 percent.

Factors that can affect dental salaries include geographic location, years of experience, and specialty. For example, dentists in urban areas generally earn more than those in rural areas, and specialists such as orthodontists and oral surgeons typically earn more than general dentists.
Keep in mind that salary data may have changed since the time of the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, so it's important to conduct your own research and stay up to date with current trends in the dental industry.

Taxable income^. As a business owner, a lot make more than that but write off a significant amount.

 

[bergus95]

Taxable income^. As a business owner, a lot make more than that but write off a significant amount.

I never understood what that means. So you don’t take that home? What does it mean to write off?

 

[Roto Picante]

I fully fund my 401K and my wife's 401K every year. I don't "take it home" per se, nor is it taxed that year. My health insurance, telephone and internet, and various other qualified expenses are written off before my "Salary" as reported by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics is recorded. So that number doesn't tell the whole story for owners.

 

[2thDoc11]

I fully fund my 401K and my wife's 401K every year. I don't "take it home" per se, nor is it taxed that year. My health insurance, telephone and internet, and various other qualified expenses are written off before my "Salary" as reported by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics is recorded. So that number doesn't tell the whole story for owners.

Pay yourself first - rich dad poor dad

 

[Nostalgia_Night]

Check what a 2 yrs master degree makes

 

[PaulS]

https://cdn.dentalpost.net/web/SalarySurvey_2023_AllPositions.pdf

I came across this interesting report and thought I should share it with everyone here. I know dentist compensation is a question that frequently comes up in this forum by dental and pre-dental students, so I found these numbers on page 9 and 10 of the report. To sum it up, GP owners have an average income of $290k and a median of $250k, while GP associates' average is $196k and median $180k. Some specialists numbers can be found on page 7 of the report. Thoughts/comments everyone?

View attachment 365533
View attachment 365534

I am in my second year of general practice in Canada and made 330k this year