This is not true. I'm a former Aspen associate dentist.
For some reason, my direct loans payments did not kick in until about 18 months after I graduated. I think they messed my repayment start date, which I didn't complain about.
Better prediction. Aspen is heading to IPO status in 2 years. But little do they know that's what will bring an end to their venture.
New grads are a fixed cost to these large corporations. On average, they profit $500k a year from each new grad. The longer new grad stays, the faster they get, the more procedures they can do, the higher the production. The little guy is still stuck at $140k a year.
Aspen has about 300 offices. They all have the same business hours (last time I checked).
The Aspen PPO program is limited to lead dentists who have track record on producing good figures for the company. It use to be by invitation only, but now aspen is asking their lead dentists to join the club.
The oral surgeon I use to work with at aspen was super hard worker and smart. He use to rotate between 10 or more aspen offices in different cities. He was producing $30-40k a month for each office, 50% of those figures were his take home. He was probably making $200-250k a month take home, that's about a cool $3M a year. All the managers knew how much he was making, in turn everyone with the company did too.
Most weeks are 40 hours, but if you work a Saturday week, then it's 46 hours. So maximum you will work in a week is 46 hours, which is once a month.
Keep in mind. Even the guy who makes $5M a year from aspen is considered an employee, which means aspen has full control over your taxes, just as it does on the assistant who makes $9/hr at aspen. While the owners of Aspen probably pay less tax than the Assistant.
Partner dentist is involved in the hiring process of dentists, managers, assistants, lab techs, etc.
Mostly self-taught, but I also worked in a family small business before I went to dental school too.
I believe that the current school loan market is heading for disaster at this current rate, where the cost of education has become completely disassociated from the value that the education provided. This is particularly true for dental school.
Just search "Aspen Reviews" on google. Most of them are rated 1 star out of 5, at least in my neck of the woods. Here is an example of an Aspen in another state: http://www.yelp.com/biz/aspen-dental-woburnMy business partner and another colleague of ours, both of whom are starting to do some intro thinking about retirement in the next 5 to 10 years, met with an Aspen rep with the possible idea of opening up an Aspen practice in Florida. They were flat out told that Aspen has a targeted goal that every new patient who walks through the door will walky out with a treatment plan of ATLEAST $3,000. That treatment plan may be comprised of everything from actual perio treatment (lots of 4 quadrant scaling treatment plans that I have seen in my own office for a 2nd opinion with generalized 2-4mm pockets, essentially no bleeding on probing, and plenty of pink, stipled gingiva) and various oral hygiene aids to restorative, oral surgery, etc. That adult patient that has a say a stained OL groove on #3, that has probably been there for 15 years, looking exactly the same and with inactive caries that isn't detectable on a radiograph, you know the type of lesion that when you see a patient for the 1st time, most of us will clinically choose to re-evaluate it at the patient's next cleaning visit to see if it needs to be restored, those types of lesions are essentially an automatic part of the patient's treatment plan at that 1st visit.
From what i've personally seen, both clinically and via 2nd opinion requests from patients, as well as via discussions with multiple collaegues about the generalized topic of corporate dentistry. Is all the work and actions of corporate dentistry questionable? Absoluetly not. Do they tend to do things/treatment plan things that one could argue are in that "gray area" at a higher frequency than most dentists would? I certainly feel that way. Then again, i'm sure that if you put 10 different dentists in a room and had them treatment plan the same patient, that at best you'd get 6 or 7 different treatment plans, realistically 8 or 9 different plans, and atleast 10% of the time, 10 different treatment plans!
