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a dentist makes ONLY 55k a year.
- Thread starter A6project
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I think I have said it a few times already, but I think this is a good opportunity to reiterate. I am not really concerned with how much debt I have. Honestly. However, I am concerned with how much cash-flow I have. If I have a large student loan, I will pay the minimum payment on that bad boy for at least the first 5-6 years. The reason is, that I need to free up as much cash-flow as I can to create a financial buffer for my practice. The good thing about some of these loans is that you can reduce your payment by extending the duration of the loan. If you know how to leverage your finances, this can really help as a business owner. Thus, you now have the opportunity to generate a lot more cash-flow as an owner compared to an associate.
Like NileBDS said, you will always have debt. learn to be OK with that. Debt isn't; the killer. Losing your cash-flow is the killer. 👍
Like NileBDS said, you will always have debt. learn to be OK with that. Debt isn't; the killer. Losing your cash-flow is the killer. 👍
But Nile didn't say you will always have debt. We will have a debt for a good portion of our career in terms of student loan, mortgage and practice, but if we play our cards right, we won't always have loan payments.
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lol, that is true! The context of my comment is that we need to be comfortable dealing with debt. My "always" comment is intended to mean that we will always be using debt, whether it be for school, work, car, house, etc. There is a reason that we all try and maintain our a credit report lol. I think we need to get comfortable with that. 🙂
You are also very correct - if we play our cards right, we can get out of debt a lot sooner than later! 👍
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Just a little note: if you are going to the over populated cities like LA or NYC on your first year out of dental school, you WON'T make $120K/y salary. You will be lucky to get a full time employment which may go only as high as $60K-$90K.
60 to 90k? Are you serious? Who would be willing to work for 60k?
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Unfortunately, there will be plenty of new and recent dental graduates who'd be more than willing to take on something as low as that. Mind you, most of the time, this would be a revolving door type jobs so most dentist employees do not stay long. Also, many would also supplement their income with extra positions outside their employment hours if allowed (ie. Work Saturday orSundays
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bump can anyone else chime in on this?
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lol good answer, just get the hell out of ur home state and go elsewhere
I'd like an opinion from an east coast associate or owner, the previous poster is from Cali and while I dont doubt his expertise on the West Coast. I don't plan to practice there, so anyone on the East coast is more than welcome to chime in.
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True plus i'm going to do a GPR, so by the time i'll be out in the field it'll be mid 2017. Hopefully a lot of dentists will continue retiring and practices will be sold for cheaper than expected rates.
I'm willing to go a bit out of NYC, but not like 100 miles out. Well see what happens. I've googled a bunch of jobs and there's still enough opportunities out there. I noticed 1 gig, a part time one offered 2 days a week at $600/day. Thats nuts 🙂 what other field can you earn $60,000 just by working twice a week LOL
Granted that might be a waste of time if you have a good job elsewhere, but I'm quite happy that dentistry has the flexibility to be a 24/7 job if you really want that. My previous field did not offer that sort of flexibility nor was I paid hourly or based on my production. So I think i'm gonna stop panicking and try to keep my head above the water.
60k jobs... ouch. It seems like if that were the hand one was dealt; I would rather join the military for loan forgiveness or do a paid residency... or like others have said and move where the job situations are better.
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I think in all of these discussion you need to separate those that are owners vs those that associate. Making the comment "You should make $100k (or 60k) coming out of school" doesn't say much. If you are an associate, how many days/week are you working? 2-4? If you own your own business, is this a draw that you've taken from the practice or did you actually net $60k. In this economy, netting $60k/year sounds pretty good if you are starting up a new office. I'm in my 5th year with a start up and still haven't made any money.
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Are you saying that you haven't seen a positive net income over your initial investment or that your costs>revenues? If the latter I am surprised your still around. Its not unusual for a business to take 5+ yrs to pay off the initial loans but you also have to realize that once you do this your sitting on a nest egg worth a ton of money. An established business can be sold just like any other asset. I did it with the company I started before Dschool.
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Are you making any money yet on your 6th year in business yet? How much did your startup cost? What is your overhead?
Is school getting to be too expensive? Yes.
Are your student loan payments going to be quite large? Yes.
Will you make a lot of money as a dentist? That depends. If you can be flexible with location: Yes. If not: No.
ex 1) From what I've heard, being a new dentist in X big city provides a lower salary and high cost of living. Moving out to the suburbs (1 or 2 hrs always) gives you a significantly higher salary, lower cost of living=huge increase in your monthly budget.
ex 2) Overheard a classmate say that he will be repaying his student loans for 40-50 years because he's from a rural area where everyone is on medicaid. Well, if that really is the case, there are probably loan repayment programs OR live in a different part of the state for a few years to pay off your loans, then go move back to your hometown.
Is it going to be easy to rake in 200K a year and work 3.5 days a week? No. You need to earn that by working hard first. I know this is America and people don't understand that, but it's true. Take a Saturday shift or stay open late 1 night a week. It will pay off.
Bottom line is: be smart with you money, make choices that are best for your future and be flexible. You can easily blow through 200K a year and struggle to pay off your student loans, or you can budget wisely with 120K a year and make extra payments on your loans to pay them off early. Its as simple as that. Luckily for us (dentists) we have a lot of money to play with, so even if loans are high, we will be left with enough to live in moderate comfort.
Are your student loan payments going to be quite large? Yes.
Will you make a lot of money as a dentist? That depends. If you can be flexible with location: Yes. If not: No.
ex 1) From what I've heard, being a new dentist in X big city provides a lower salary and high cost of living. Moving out to the suburbs (1 or 2 hrs always) gives you a significantly higher salary, lower cost of living=huge increase in your monthly budget.
ex 2) Overheard a classmate say that he will be repaying his student loans for 40-50 years because he's from a rural area where everyone is on medicaid. Well, if that really is the case, there are probably loan repayment programs OR live in a different part of the state for a few years to pay off your loans, then go move back to your hometown.
Is it going to be easy to rake in 200K a year and work 3.5 days a week? No. You need to earn that by working hard first. I know this is America and people don't understand that, but it's true. Take a Saturday shift or stay open late 1 night a week. It will pay off.
Bottom line is: be smart with you money, make choices that are best for your future and be flexible. You can easily blow through 200K a year and struggle to pay off your student loans, or you can budget wisely with 120K a year and make extra payments on your loans to pay them off early. Its as simple as that. Luckily for us (dentists) we have a lot of money to play with, so even if loans are high, we will be left with enough to live in moderate comfort.
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I don't know why you guys worry so much about your future income in dentistry. My dad is a dentist. You guys are set!
Dentists as a collective political organization learned from the mistakes of physicians, especially when it comes to insurance companies. If you open a practice, you aren't obligated to accept the insurance companies' fees alone. You get to charge what you think is appropriate for your services and patients have to pay, regardless of how much their insurance companies actually pay. You guys definitely took the right approach with insurance companies by giving them the finger.
As long as you open your own practice, the sky is the limit in terms of income. It's a sweet gig. My dad is very happy with his practice. He works four days a week. The practice is very simple--he never tried to create a practice that would generate a ton of income. He only has one chair and one hygienist. Nonetheless, he easily nets (before taxes) approximately $200k per year.
Not bad, man. Not a bad gig at all--a four day work week and essentially no emergencies.
I wish I had gone into dentistry. It's a much better field than medicine these days.
Private practice is alive and well in dentistry. If I were you I would avoid corporate dentistry gigs like the plague. If they're anything like corporations in medicine, which are becoming a dominant presence, they will ruin the profession.
Stay independent! Give these greedy corporations the proverbial finger and open your own practices! Like my dad, you'll be much better off in the long run.
Dentists as a collective political organization learned from the mistakes of physicians, especially when it comes to insurance companies. If you open a practice, you aren't obligated to accept the insurance companies' fees alone. You get to charge what you think is appropriate for your services and patients have to pay, regardless of how much their insurance companies actually pay. You guys definitely took the right approach with insurance companies by giving them the finger.
As long as you open your own practice, the sky is the limit in terms of income. It's a sweet gig. My dad is very happy with his practice. He works four days a week. The practice is very simple--he never tried to create a practice that would generate a ton of income. He only has one chair and one hygienist. Nonetheless, he easily nets (before taxes) approximately $200k per year.
Not bad, man. Not a bad gig at all--a four day work week and essentially no emergencies.
I wish I had gone into dentistry. It's a much better field than medicine these days.
Private practice is alive and well in dentistry. If I were you I would avoid corporate dentistry gigs like the plague. If they're anything like corporations in medicine, which are becoming a dominant presence, they will ruin the profession.
Stay independent! Give these greedy corporations the proverbial finger and open your own practices! Like my dad, you'll be much better off in the long run.
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The only trouble is, an increasing number of graduates can no longer open a practice upon graduating. With such a massive debt load (now much higher than in medicine unfortunately), they have to begin making high dollar amounts immediately, which means a corporate gigs are the only option. Of course that is only a problem if you go to an expensive school.
But.... that's not my worry. Heck, Im not even really worried about the soaring number of dental school graduates. My worry always revolves around dental therapists. Unlike mid-level providers in medicine, many of these practitioners trained in recent years have as little as 2 years of education beyond highschool, but can perform many "bread-and-butter" dental procedures. For example, they can do fillings, crowns, and simple extractions. They may or may not be fully autonomous when they are fully introduced a few years down the road, but they certainly will drive the demand down for dentists. Specializing might help, but I imagine GDs will simply begin referring less out to specialists to make up for lost revenue - after all, they will have much less going on in the office.
I guess it's not all bad though. To be fair, by the time mid-levels actually reach numbers high enough to affect the market, our debt (current d-school students) should be largely paid down. And self-employed dentists in developed countries that have this type of dental therapist still currently average around 100K per year. Money-wise that really doesn't compare to medicine though, so unless you really like teeth you probably made the right choice.
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cry me a river perhaps I am misinterpreting the tone in the OP as a complaint. If not:
Even making $1 income per year sure beats the profession I am leaving in order to pursue dentistry: in fact there is no comparison.
After subtracting the most basic of living expenses, I was taking home exactly less than zero income per year.
If my plan comes to fruition and I am netting 'only' 10k year income after living expenses as a newly licensed dentist: I'm going to be ecstatic.
Perhaps its my age (and I am jaded somewhat I suppose) but its all about perspective in matters of $$$. Generally, anyone under the age of about 45 is screwed across the board anyways. That giant sucking sound in the economy is the sound of demographics (11,000 boomers PER DAY reaching the age of 60 for the next many years since 2009) sucking the last vestige of life out of general opportunities for personal financial progress anyways. For example, in terms of tuition costs, its this age group, under the auspice of their 'management' of all things government, financial and political, who is responsible for 2 decades of exponentially rising costs with no end in sight. That is, they parasite the young to their own generation's perceived advantage. The host population was sucked dry a long time ago.
Regardless: Great post OP! Thanks for the excellent breakdown, very informative and useful!👍
I have thought a lot about the place a dentist has in the marketplace. Obviously, its been a big investment to pursue a switch this relatively late in life. I am convinced the nature of the work will see dentists protected for a long time to come. Human nature doesn't change and generally most people (who compose the marketplace) don't think about dental work until they are desperate. The only major threats I see to the viability of dentistry as a socioeconomically viable and independent profession are:
#1 This dental therapist angle. Big government + stupid people who compose the vast majority of mouthbreathing bipeds in the marketplace = a constant desire to cut corners to save $$$ in the short run (quality and longevity of dental services sacrificed). If the ADA et al doesn't carefully craft an extremely wise political course for the profession, and if the forces of the 'idiocracy' are marshalled and combine with those entrenched in big government: this will be the #1 threat. To the detriment of the general public in the long run, of course. The unfortunate truth is that big gov and the masses are incapable of seeing the larger picture of:
"You are given the options of Fast, Good and Cheap, and told to pick any two. Here Fast refers to the time required to deliver the product, Good is the quality of the final product, and Cheap refers to the total cost of designing and building the product. This triangle reflects the fact that the three properties of a project are interrelated, and it is not possible to optimize all three – one will always suffer. In other words you have three options:
Design something quickly and to a high standard, but then it will not be cheap.
Design something quickly and cheaply, but it will not be of high quality.
Design something with high quality and cheaply, but it will take a long time."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_triangle
#2 This whole obamacare debacle. Though it seems like dentists are going to largely remain a secondary target of the whole middle man-insurance/big government bureaucracy cluster****. My father is a practicing physician and he has grown increasingly threatened by the day to day mal-effects of socialized medicine. Essentially, the end result of socialized medicine is lower quality of care to the masses AND commensurately less autonomy and art of practice for physicians as most decisions end up being effectively made by far off committees of disinterested big government strangers to both the specifics of an individual case and their personal concerns. I couldn't bare the madness of watching patients suffer and not receive the best care all because of these blood sucking middle men entrenched in insurance companies, big corporations, and big government. This (inevitable at this point) socialization of medical care is one of the top ten reasons I went the DMD/DDS route and not the MD.
Again, the quote above about project management under the heading of #1 is applicable to #2 as well. The 'idiocracy' will never be capable of understanding that quickly, high quality, and on time is exactly impossible to systematically deliver on a routine basis. In anything, and especially a thing as necessarily customized as personal health care.
...
In the end all that matters is: Being a bankrupt dentist who gets to practice everyday sure beats being bankrupt in just about any other occupation out there. And dentists will always be 'less' broke anyways as the nature of the work ensures they will always have access to at least a minimum amount of cash flow. Even the dentists who is least talented/ skilled in financial management is not going to go hungry.
perhaps I am misinterpreting the tone in the OP as a complaint. If not:Even making $1 income per year sure beats the profession I am leaving in order to pursue dentistry: in fact there is no comparison.
After subtracting the most basic of living expenses, I was taking home exactly less than zero income per year.
If my plan comes to fruition and I am netting 'only' 10k year income after living expenses as a newly licensed dentist: I'm going to be ecstatic.
Perhaps its my age (and I am jaded somewhat I suppose) but its all about perspective in matters of $$$. Generally, anyone under the age of about 45 is screwed across the board anyways. That giant sucking sound in the economy is the sound of demographics (11,000 boomers PER DAY reaching the age of 60 for the next many years since 2009) sucking the last vestige of life out of general opportunities for personal financial progress anyways. For example, in terms of tuition costs, its this age group, under the auspice of their 'management' of all things government, financial and political, who is responsible for 2 decades of exponentially rising costs with no end in sight. That is, they parasite the young to their own generation's perceived advantage. The host population was sucked dry a long time ago.
Regardless: Great post OP! Thanks for the excellent breakdown, very informative and useful!👍
I have thought a lot about the place a dentist has in the marketplace. Obviously, its been a big investment to pursue a switch this relatively late in life. I am convinced the nature of the work will see dentists protected for a long time to come. Human nature doesn't change and generally most people (who compose the marketplace) don't think about dental work until they are desperate. The only major threats I see to the viability of dentistry as a socioeconomically viable and independent profession are:
#1 This dental therapist angle. Big government + stupid people who compose the vast majority of mouthbreathing bipeds in the marketplace = a constant desire to cut corners to save $$$ in the short run (quality and longevity of dental services sacrificed). If the ADA et al doesn't carefully craft an extremely wise political course for the profession, and if the forces of the 'idiocracy' are marshalled and combine with those entrenched in big government: this will be the #1 threat. To the detriment of the general public in the long run, of course. The unfortunate truth is that big gov and the masses are incapable of seeing the larger picture of:
"You are given the options of Fast, Good and Cheap, and told to pick any two. Here Fast refers to the time required to deliver the product, Good is the quality of the final product, and Cheap refers to the total cost of designing and building the product. This triangle reflects the fact that the three properties of a project are interrelated, and it is not possible to optimize all three – one will always suffer. In other words you have three options:
Design something quickly and to a high standard, but then it will not be cheap.
Design something quickly and cheaply, but it will not be of high quality.
Design something with high quality and cheaply, but it will take a long time."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_triangle
#2 This whole obamacare debacle. Though it seems like dentists are going to largely remain a secondary target of the whole middle man-insurance/big government bureaucracy cluster****. My father is a practicing physician and he has grown increasingly threatened by the day to day mal-effects of socialized medicine. Essentially, the end result of socialized medicine is lower quality of care to the masses AND commensurately less autonomy and art of practice for physicians as most decisions end up being effectively made by far off committees of disinterested big government strangers to both the specifics of an individual case and their personal concerns. I couldn't bare the madness of watching patients suffer and not receive the best care all because of these blood sucking middle men entrenched in insurance companies, big corporations, and big government. This (inevitable at this point) socialization of medical care is one of the top ten reasons I went the DMD/DDS route and not the MD.
Again, the quote above about project management under the heading of #1 is applicable to #2 as well. The 'idiocracy' will never be capable of understanding that quickly, high quality, and on time is exactly impossible to systematically deliver on a routine basis. In anything, and especially a thing as necessarily customized as personal health care.
...
In the end all that matters is: Being a bankrupt dentist who gets to practice everyday sure beats being bankrupt in just about any other occupation out there. And dentists will always be 'less' broke anyways as the nature of the work ensures they will always have access to at least a minimum amount of cash flow. Even the dentists who is least talented/ skilled in financial management is not going to go hungry.
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Cry me a friggin river lol...All you care about is money? Believe me from someone who makes a solid living. Money will not change about 95% of the things that you do on a day to day basis. It might give you some amenities here and there, but it won't give you what you think you're looking for. That comes from within. Just be happy you have a roof over your head, food on the table, and a solid job where you can work anywhere in the world.
amen
