California Licensure Questions

[dudelove]

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Ok. I have been practicing dentistry out east and I am originally from the east coast. I have been looking at purchasing a practice recently and did some soul searching. My ultimate goal is to retire out west. Then I realized that maybe I should work AND retire out west. Life is very short. Anyhow, I have some questions for anyone practicing in California.

1) Do a lot of practices take medi-cal, ppos and hmos? I practice around the Boston area and I have never taken anything of the sort and would never like to take anything of the sort.

2) Is it hard to make a living out there? The patients seem to flow into the door like water here. Everytime I go out to Southern California there seems to be a dentist on EVERY corner.

3) How do I get licensure by credential? I understand I have to have been practicing for 5 years to get it, so I have 1 year to go, but I have to start figuring this stuff out. There is nothing on the California dental licensure page in terms of forms,advice,etc,etc

4) Any advice,encouragement,etc would be appreciated

5) Thanks

 

[dudelove]

*Bump*

 

[dudelove]

Dudelove would appreciate some loving help please 🙁)

 

[augustdds]

I have been practicing in Southern California for 6 years now. I do believe that they have liscensure by credentials, but the dental board is in a transitional stage and its taking some time for them to get re-organized.

When I moved from Seattle, I too was shocked at the number of dentists in LA and also the "doc in the box" at every corner. There are just a lot of people here. Most of the places you are seeing are "clinics" and they do take a lot of HMOs, PPOS and Denti-Cal. There are a lot of low income folks here and those places cater towards them.

I do not take any form of managed care or Denti-Cal and I seem to be doing fine. You really should start with where you want to practice and then look at how many dentists cater towards that socio-economic group.

It seems everyone here wants to be the dentists to the stars. So that niche is pretty full. Scope out the areas around LA or Orange county, I am sure that there is room for one more dentist.


August

 

[Westside22]

if you do not take any form of managed care or Denti-Care, do you mean you only take patients that pay cash?

or do you also take insurance such as Delta Dental? Delta Dental is considered a form of managed care isn't it? I am confused, can you clarify?

I know that in LA and Orange County, you will see 4 dental offices at every corner, not just 1 or 2.

However, other areas in California also need dentists, and pay them well, but these are cities that are rather undesirable for some folks to live in, such as Bakersfield, or Fresno.

for Dudelove, if you dont mind me asking, how long have you worked in BOston and what is the demand for dentists there currently?

My older sibling graduated from a dental school in Boston and virtually all of her classmates/close-friends (about 15 that she knew well) opt. to go back to their home state instead of finding work and staying in Boston, even though some of them loved the city, but were not able to find work that was appealing to them, so they went back to their home states.

 

[augustdds]

Westside,

I do take insurance. You will learn as you get out that Delta is an interesting animal. Delta Premiere is their indemnity insurance, but they must approve your fees. My fees are really close to Delta Premiere ($850 molar endo/ $750 PFM) they are just 20 bucks off on my posterior composite.

Managed care is usually PPO and HMO plans. There are ways to make them work too. The thing to consider is where you want to practice first and then figure out what the market is. If you are in a dentist saturated market and all of them take HMOs, then you may starve trying to be only fee for service (cash and indemnity insurance).

Places like Palmdale/Lancaster/Bakersfield are really booming and in Bakersfield they are particularly doing well, As an associate you may get paid more in these areas. As far as living? Some people like to live outside of the city. I live in Santa Monica and would not think of moving outside of my town. To each their own.

But I think that there are still lots of opportunities in LA you just have to work a little harder.

August