Dental Hygienists approaching dentist salaries

[KSDental]

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I recently read that dental hygiene is one of the fastest growing careers, with a median salary of over 60k. On the other hand dentist salaries seem to be stagnant or declining. How can this be? Why is the demand for dental hygienists so high while dentist jobs are saturated? How can hygienists have such high salaries? Many dentists only make slightly more after the additional loans and taxes are accounted for.

 

[KittySquared]

Dental hygiene strongly depends on the location. It really varies from state to state. I have colleagues out by Arizona, pulling in $70k easy, not even 5 days of work and others in the northeast having problems making $35k working 6 days a week. I'm not too familiar with how things are in the West Coast, but range of salary varies from $18 to $40 across the country. I know for a fact that hygienists in California make a bank, but the living costs are also outrageous there.

 

[KSDental]

Since dental hygiene seems to be relatively profitable, why don't more dentists do it during their downtime? Even with a hygienist it seems like it would increase their salaries if they did S/RP when other procedures aren't available.

 

[DrJeff]

Since dental hygiene seems to be relatively profitable, why don't more dentists do it during their downtime? Even with a hygienist it seems like it would increase their salaries if they did S/RP when other procedures aren't available.

It's really simple. Most of us practicing dentists don't have much downtime. Also for most of us practicing dentists what we will typically bill per hour is great (and often much greater) than what a hygienist will bill in an hour. Lastly, if i'm working on a patient, and my hygienist(s) are working on a patient(s) at the same time, the office is billing more per hour that way. Dentistry IS a business afterall.

Plain and simply put, to cover the overhead for my hygienists(materials, pay, benefits, etc), for what they typically bill per hour, that amounts to about 1/3rd of what they bill. The remaining 2/3rds goes to my partner and I. That's why I don't want to be seeing too many hygiene patients. It's about the business side of dentistry!

 

[Odontos2015]

Also consider 8 hours of hygiene is more physically demanding than 8 hours of general dentistry. For the wrist and back. The hygiene burnout rate his high while most dentists, if they choose, are able to practice into their 70s, and in some cases 80s.

 

[DrJeff]

Also consider 8 hours of hygiene is more physically demanding than 8 hours of general dentistry. For the wrist and back. The hygiene burnout rate his high while most dentists, if they choose, are able to practice into their 70s, and in some cases 80s.

I think that the "wear and tear" rate on the body isn't that much different for a dentist vs. a hygienist (especially if you're using proper posture as much as possible ) From what i've seen the difference in "burn out" rates between dentists and hygienists has much more to do with motherhood than anything else. It's no big suprise that most hygienists are women, Many of whom start off in the profession during their child bearing years. Kids arrive, and their interest in hygiene and/or working in general will decrease as their interest in being a Mom to their kids increase. You see a similar thing with female dentists of child bearing age when they have kids too. They'll often cut back on their hours post childbirth, most won't stop practicing all together as the need to payback one's loans often supercedes the natural tendency to be a mom for most 😉

 

[AllHasOne]

Every dentist I job shadowed either doesn't have a hygienist or they have about two of them, both being part-time because they don't want to pay for benefits.... I heard hygienists don't get it all great