My take on things from both the associate side and now from the partner side. First off as mentioned above, if you want to go in by yourself, buy out a retiring dentist, this way you'll atleast start off with not only some infastructure(chairs, x-ray units, instruments), but also some patients to work on too. Starting a practice from scratch will require ALOT more effort to get some bodies in the chair to work on, and hence it will take a bit longer to really start making some solid private practice $$. And while you buying a practice will cause some of the existing patient base to leave, you'll still retain a good number of patients to work on(on average between 1/2 to 2/3rds of patients will stay with you).
Okay, my views/experiences as an associate vs. a partner. My 1st associateship, the best way to describe it was an 8:30 to 5:30 job. Yes had had full autonomy over patient treatment, but I had very little(if any) input into office descisions. The nice part was come 5:30, I was out the door and didn't have any worries about the business side of things, and I received a very nice paycheck each week too, not partnership $$, byt atleast a good as what the ADA says an "average" dentist makes.
My 2nd associateship, and the practice that I'm now a partner in, was a bit different. While I was an associate, my (now) partner did put alot of my opinions into how the practice was run. I was involved in hiring/firing decisions, equipment/materials choices and general everyday business decisions. I still made a very nice amount of $$ (more than my 1st associateship, but wasn't getting a piece of the very lucrative hygiene profit pie that adds alot of the partners income. Most of the time though, come 5PM, I'd be out thte door with little, if any real business worries.
Now as a partner, yes I do get a chunk of the hygiene profit 👍 , but the business role is alot more. I'll typically be spend an average of 4 to 5 hours a week doing business administration (things like looking over rates for health insurance for my employees, looking at retirement benefit packages for my employees, looking at what the overhead is running at, looking at the accounts receiveable, looking at the quarterly tax numbers, etc) Granted alot of this is just reviewing reports by the accountant, insurance salesman, and financial planner, but it still takes time and effects the practice. Fir example, health insurance, which we provide to our fulltime employees, we just received our rate quotes for our next years plan (our plan goes July 1 - June 30), and our rates for our current plan are set to go up 13% next year, which for our 10 employees and family coverage for me and my partners family has us writing a check each month for almost $7,000 😱 Thsi doesn't even get into the "boss" things I get to do from time to time when one employee has a spat with another 🙄
Being the owner does have benefits, but added responsibilty (and hours) come with it.
