Daily salary

[OrangeStorm]

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I graduated in 2012, have worked in a number of practices in 3 different states. I took some time off in 2020 and moved to Texas for family. Now I am looking for an associate job. At almost all the interviews I’ve had so far, the employers asked me what I expect for compensation, which I have never been asked before even when I was a new grad. So is that common being asked for expected compensation now? The last time I looked for a job was 2014. Am I too out dated for the current dental market? What is the “going” rate these days? I’m in Austin, Tx for reference. An office asked me that in their first email to me. I don’t even know what insurance they accept, the hours etc.

 

[oralcare123]

Check local Indeed ads, they usually list daily minimums

 

[TanMan]

The proper answer might be: I don't need a minimum daily salary, throw me as many patients as possible and I'll produce as much as I can.

 

[yappy]

The proper answer might be: I don't need a minimum daily salary, throw me as many patients as possible and I'll produce as much as I can.

The nice thing about a healthy daily minimum is that it incentivizes the employer to send you a lot of patients.

I agree with looking within your locale for daily minimums and also determining what percentage of collections is competitive. I would also ask dentist friends in the area that are employees for there thoughts. The first step to being effective in negotiations is knowing your worth. Without living in that state I cannot offer you any specifics.

 

[2TH MVR]

If you are looking to be an employee .... don't forget to include benefits outside of your salary. Benefits such as 401 matching, vacation pay, medical/vision/etc. PTO, malpractice insurance paid for, free CE, etc. etc. These benefits add up. These employers look at these benefits packages as part of your salary.

As for daily minimum vs. production. It all depends on the supply of patients. As a semi-retired orthodontist ..... I like the daily minimum with bonuses. This allows me to treat the patients "properly" without squeezing every production dollar out of every patient procedure. The daily minimum I can count on. The bonuses are incentives to make me work harder.

From an employer's standpoint. Yeah. They usually want to save money when hiring new employees or staff. You know. Get rid of the higher paid long term employee and replace with a lesser paid employee. Gotta control the overhead. Right?

 

[charlestweed]

If you are looking to be an employee .... don't forget to include benefits outside of your salary. Benefits such as 401 matching, vacation pay, medical/vision/etc. PTO, malpractice insurance paid for, free CE, etc. etc. These benefits add up. These employers look at these benefits packages as part of your salary.

Yup, this would be ideal if you work as an employee....get paid well and have as many other benefits as possible.

From an employer's standpoint. Yeah. They usually want to save money when hiring new employees or staff. You know. Get rid of the higher paid long term employee and replace with a lesser paid employee. Gotta control the overhead. Right?

And yes, this would be ideal if you are an owner.....pay employees as little as possible and keep the overhead as low as possible.

So for both (associate dentist and owner) to be happy, the agreement has to be a compromised one for both parties. For the owner to pay you well, he has to cut cost somewhere else. If you, an associate dentist, want to get paid well + bonus + other benefits, then don't complain about the owner who provides you cheap supplies/instruments and incompetent assistants (to save in overhead). Nothing in life is perfect, you have to give up something in order to gain something.

 

[allDAT]

Know what you’re worth. You’re worth at least 700 a day as a guarantee, however you may choose to waive the minimum salary for the right opportunity if you choose.

That’s probably how I’d play it. If you think the office is awesome and it would further your career, take less. If you think you’ll be abused, ask for more.

 

[allDAT]

There are many dentists with more than 5 years of experience who wouldn’t blink at asking for a minimum of $800 a day.

When you have experience, asking for a minimum weeds out the practices that aren’t taking it seriously. Like when an owner says “that’s more than I make”....well...that’s a problem isn’t it? Better to learn that today than in 6 months when you learn that the office doesn’t have enough patients to support you.

 

[Screwtape]

This is probably more dependent on the area than you, but I feel like a base of at least $150k is reasonable for an experienced dentist most places. That’s $750 a day 4 days a week.

 

[TanMan]

As a potential employee, it all depends on whether there's a shortage or a surplus of dentists in a given position. If you have competition, you need to sell yourself but at the same time, you need to look out for your own too. You would sell yourself by showing your motivation to make money. If the office you're applying for doesn't care about that, you probably shouldn't work there.

I would be very upfront in telling a practice owner/recruiter, I don't need a daily minimum unless your practice is unable to provide enough production for me to work through every day. To destroy other applicants, you could also say, daily minimums make people lazy and I have no intention of sitting around on your dime, but I would also expect to make money for your company and myself while I am here. You want to find an office that can give you at least 8-10k+ production/day (with a minimum of 25-35%).

Now, if you were lazy, I'd try and get as high of a daily minimum as possible and do as little as possible. It's easier to get away with that in some corporate scenarios if they couldn't bring the patients in (especially in an undesirable area).

Personally (and this is probably unrealistic for an associate), I don't want to get out of bed for under 5k takehome/day.

 

[Screwtape]

As a potential employee, it all depends on whether there's a shortage or a surplus of dentists in a given position. If you have competition, you need to sell yourself but at the same time, you need to look out for your own too. You would sell yourself by showing your motivation to make money. If the office you're applying for doesn't care about that, you probably shouldn't work there.

I would be very upfront in telling a practice owner/recruiter, I don't need a daily minimum unless your practice is unable to provide enough production for me to work through every day. To destroy other applicants, you could also say, daily minimums make people lazy and I have no intention of sitting around on your dime, but I would also expect to make money for your company and myself while I am here. You want to find an office that can give you at least 8-10k+ production/day (with a minimum of 25-35%).

Now, if you were lazy, I'd try and get as high of a daily minimum as possible and do as little as possible. It's easier to get away with that in some corporate scenarios if they couldn't bring the patients in (especially in an undesirable area).

Personally (and this is probably unrealistic for an associate), I don't want to get out of bed for under 5k takehome/day.

I am going to respectfully disagree that this is applicable to most people. This is advice to a young tanman. Similar to Tom Cruise going into a high school and telling everyone to just become millionaire movie stars.

Daily minimums are important, you need to know the office is incentivized to keep you busy to a degree. Also, you need to know they have the ability to do so. This is slightly less important if you are looking at a practice where you will be the only dentist and the numbers are healthy.

Finding an office where you can consistently do ~$9k production a day as an associate is going to be a VERY hard find. Nearly impossible in some states I would bet. And truly impossible for a lot of people. That would equate to $1.8 million in doctor production only (working 4 days a week with 2 weeks vacation). The average dental office (as a whole, so including hygiene) produces less than HALF of that (around $800k). Producing that amount of dentistry consistently takes some very streamlined and efficient systems. Things associates a lot of times don’t have control over. Also just the hands/personality/back strength to produce that is just not there for a good chunk of people.

There are lofty goals and then there are unattainable goals. I think most of what you said is truly unattainable for the vast majority of associates.

 

[TanMan]

I am going to respectfully disagree that this is applicable to most people. This is advice to a young tanman. Similar to Tom Cruise going into a high school and telling everyone to just become millionaire movie stars.

Daily minimums are important, you need to know the office is incentivized to keep you busy to a degree. Also, you need to know they have the ability to do so. This is slightly less important if you are looking at a practice where you will be the only dentist and the numbers are healthy.

Finding an office where you can consistently do ~$9k production a day as an associate is going to be a VERY hard find. Nearly impossible in some states I would bet. And truly impossible for a lot of people. That would equate to $1.8 million in doctor production only (working 4 days a week with 2 weeks vacation). The average dental office (as a whole, so including hygiene) produces less than HALF of that (around $800k). Producing that amount of dentistry consistently takes some very streamlined and efficient systems. Things associates a lot of times don’t have control over. Also just the hands/personality/back strength to produce that is just not there for a good chunk of people.

There are lofty goals and then there are unattainable goals. I think most of what you said is truly unattainable for the vast majority of associates.

This may be applicable to a certain extent if we assume that people cannot adapt to stressful or higher workload situations. However, I do think that when push comes to shove on an avalanche of workload and you're continually exposed to that type of workload, that people will either adapt + rise up to the occasion or sink to the bottom.

Two dentist systems are not always a bad thing... Having an extra dentist can definitely take away some of your production, BUT if the other dentist is lazy and is content on his or her daily minimums, then giving them the easy, but time consuming non-productives can help you focus on your production a lot more.

 

[charlestweed]

This may be applicable to a certain extent if we assume that people cannot adapt to stressful or higher workload situations. However, I do think that when push comes to shove on an avalanche of workload and you're continually exposed to that type of workload, that people will either adapt + rise up to the occasion or sink to the bottom.

Two dentist systems are not always a bad thing... Having an extra dentist can definitely take away some of your production, BUT if the other dentist is lazy and is content on his or her daily minimums, then giving them the easy, but time consuming non-productives can help you focus on your production a lot more.

If you give your associate dentists all the easy cases (so you have time for the more productive cases), they will come to this forum to complain about you for taking all the good cases away from them. And if you give them a lot of hard productive cases that require them to stay late (because they are so slow) to complete them, they will also go here to complain about you for making them work too hard. No matter what you do, your associate dentist will never be 100% happy with you.

 

[Molar Whisperer]

I graduated in 2012, have worked in a number of practices in 3 different states. I took some time off in 2020 and moved to Texas for family. Now I am looking for an associate job. At almost all the interviews I’ve had so far, the employers asked me what I expect for compensation, which I have never been asked before even when I was a new grad. So is that common being asked for expected compensation now? The last time I looked for a job was 2014. Am I too out dated for the current dental market? What is the “going” rate these days? I’m in Austin, Tx for reference. An office asked me that in their first email to me. I don’t even know what insurance they accept, the hours etc.

IMO, where you practice can matter just as much or more than how much you make. I went to undergrad 100 miles north of Austin in the late 80's and early 90s. Back then, Austin was a super-desirable and expensive place to live. When I went to school, I heard stories of 5 college guys in Austin cramming into a 1 BR apt (a few will stay on Mon, Wed, Fri while others on Tues, Thurs, Sat). Austin may be similar to San Jose/San Fran area (with more friendly taxes) where $200k/yr would not provide a comfortable living (beans and rice maybe) and much less opportunities to pay off your student loans.

From my experience, practicing in a super-saturated area can be very depressing. Fortunately I have no student loans and my family and I get to enjoy living in a desirable location.

 

[TanMan]

If you give your associate dentists all the easy cases (so you have time for the more productive cases), they will come to this forum to complain about you for taking all the good cases away from them. And if you give them a lot of hard productive cases that require them to stay late (because they are so slow) to complete them, they will also go here to complain about you for making them work too hard. No matter what you do, your associate dentist will never be 100% happy with you.

From an owner perspective, that's definitely true. However, if you're an associate dentist working with another associate, it's more favorable to have a lazy colleague in the same office for your own production.

 

[2TH MVR]

Our DSO had a couple of general dentists that were getting a little too comfortable with their daily minimum compensations. They just weren't motivated to work harder. So the DSO lowered their daily minimum and based more of their compensation on production. One quit and the other worked harder, but made more money. Win -win.

Every situation will be different. Every DSO and private office is different. For new grads .... I believe the daily minimum is the way to go. As you get more experience .... then less daily minimum and more production based compensation. Again. Depends on the practice. If you are working for @TanMan with his seemingly endless supply of patients .... then production based compensation is better. Although not sure who could keep up with Dr. Tanman lol.

As an orthodontist .... I receive an adequate daily minimum plus bonuses. Best of both worlds. Office is slow. I still get my generous minimum. Office is busy .... I make additional money in the form of bonuses. Lately ... the office has been booming. Plenty of ortho starts. Nice big paychecks. I would not work at this DSO if my only compensation was a daily minimum.

 

[yappy]

Our DSO had a couple of general dentists that were getting a little too comfortable with their daily minimum compensations. They just weren't motivated to work harder. So the DSO lowered their daily minimum and based more of their compensation on production. One quit and the other worked harder, but made more money. Win -win.

The most terrifying thing to an employer is an employee without debt, healthy emergency fund, who lives below their means.

 

[charlestweed]

From an owner perspective, that's definitely true. However, if you're an associate dentist working with another associate, it's more favorable to have a lazy colleague in the same office for your own production.

The problem is everyone has an ego. It would be very hard for the 2 associate GPs to get along well, especially when one doc is fast and extremely hard working and the other doc is slow, lazy, and unmotivated. The staff tend to treat the good doc better and usually ignore the slow lazy doc. And when the lazy doc gets tired of being treated like a 2nd class citizen, he/she goes to this forum to complain about the hostile workplace environment. I've seen the tension/conflict between the 2 associate dentists all the time at the corp where I work at. The good and hard working ones usually stay at the same job for a long time (I've worked with this same managing dentist at the corp for 10+ years) because all the high production cases go to them. The slow ones quit or get fired after a few months.

If I was an employer, I would never want to hire a slow lazy unmotivated dentist to work at my office......no matter how low the minimum pay he/she is willing to accept. He/she would create more headaches than help.

 

[charlestweed]

The most terrifying thing to an employer is an employee without debt, healthy emergency fund, who lives below their means.

I don't think an employer cares about an associate dentist's financial situation. Employer only cares about whether an associate dentist can produce or not. What terrifies an employer the most is the shortage of associate dentists. It's supply and demand. Since there is a surplus of dentists everywhere (due to the openings of new dental schools), employers now have the luxury to pick and chose the good/fast dentists, whom they think would benefit them the most, and reject the slow lazy unmotivated ones. Due to oversaturation of dentists, employers have no problem finding new dentists to replace the ones who quit

 

[TanMan]

The problem is everyone has an ego. It would be very hard for the 2 associate GPs to get along well, especially when one doc is fast and extremely hard working and the other doc is slow, lazy, and unmotivated. The staff tend to treat the good doc better and usually ignore the slow lazy doc. And when the lazy doc gets tired of being treated like a 2nd class citizen, he/she goes to this forum to complain about the hostile workplace environment. I've seen the tension/conflict between the 2 associate dentists all the time at the corp where I work at. The good and hard working ones usually stay at the same job for a long time (I've worked with this same managing dentist at the corp for 10+ years) because all the high production cases go to them. The slow ones quit or get fired after a few months.

If I was an employer, I would never want to hire a slow lazy unmotivated dentist to work at my office......no matter how low the minimum pay he/she is willing to accept. He/she would create more headaches than help.

There are "hidden gem" scenarios when it comes to corporate. If you're planning to work in a 2 doctor office and the office has a lot of potential to produce, you want a dentist-coworker who is trapped or disillusioned. Scenarios include medically compromised (stuck there because they need the health insurance provided by the DSO and if their medical condition makes them slower, the more likely you can pass off non-productives to them) or disillusioned from a failed practice because they couldn't hack it and is just trying to make ends meet + demoralized/lack of willpower to produce.

It is sad, but that's another strategic move to look into when looking into an associateship (looking into how the other associate is doing, why they are there, etc.). If the aforementioned scenarios apply and they are constantly overwhelmed by lots of patients + inability of other dentist to keep up, everything will fall into place and the assistants will even give you the more complex procedures because they don't want to be stuck there for a very long time.

 

[JackyTreehorn]

I also graduated in 2012, 10 yrs experience. I won't work for offices that have low fees, or offices that work on volume/and in network with every cut-rate insurance. Looking exclusively for FFS, high end PPO, cash paying patient demographic.

Absolutely depends whether or not I want to do daily minimum rate salary, or production based. Depends on fees and type of practice...

I vet these practices and if I even smell a hint of BS, I'm moving on. It's only this way because my peers and I have wasted time and worth on terrible employers before. I've asked for copies of fee schedules, who are they in network with? Logs of past daily schedules to check what kind of volume I'm going to be looking at. If they refuse to garnish this simple information, take a walk. Sometimes I'll even ask about their accounts receivables #s. If they are the least bit proud of their practice they will offer this info up, otherwise they are hiding something from you.

Some of that negotiation has to be on your terms. Know your worth. I'd rather be a park ranger making 50k/yr than doing 5-6 days/week of triple booked cut-rate dentistry just to collect 125k at the end of the day. A lot of this depends too on your experience level and what you can bring to a practice. But you have to HUNT for those hidden gems and it may mean moving.

Look for privately owned family practices that are FFS, cash payers, and only in network with very few high end PPOs with good contracted rates/fees.

 

[LaughingGas]

I also graduated in 2012, 10 yrs experience. I won't work for offices that have low fees, or offices that work on volume/and in network with every cut-rate insurance. Looking exclusively for FFS, high end PPO, cash paying patient demographic.

Absolutely depends whether or not I want to do daily minimum rate salary, or production based. Depends on fees and type of practice...

I vet these practices and if I even smell a hint of BS, I'm moving on. It's only this way because my peers and I have wasted time and worth on terrible employers before. I've asked for copies of fee schedules, who are they in network with? Logs of past daily schedules to check what kind of volume I'm going to be looking at. If they refuse to garnish this simple information, take a walk. Sometimes I'll even ask about their accounts receivables #s. If they are the least bit proud of their practice they will offer this info up, otherwise they are hiding something from you.

Some of that negotiation has to be on your terms. Know your worth. I'd rather be a park ranger making 50k/yr than doing 5-6 days/week of triple booked cut-rate dentistry just to collect 125k at the end of the day. A lot of this depends too on your experience level and what you can bring to a practice. But you have to HUNT for those hidden gems and it may mean moving.

Look for privately owned family practices that are FFS, cash payers, and only in network with very few high end PPOs with good contracted rates/fees.

Absolutely agree with this. I worked a place where cash fee for exam/prophy was $35. Obviously I produced more than the office fee but never wanted to give me a raise because I wasn't producing based on their "office fee". Of course, I ended up leaving that practice, but wish I left sooner.