dentists=how much are you making as an associate

[OceanBlue]

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No more loans for me. For how long is the $3000 per month student loan payment? That's a lot of money!

I was thinking of NYU......

 

[Lesley]

I have always wondered how does a practice run with no PPOs at all......how many people actually have the money to shell out for a fee for service only practice?everyone I know has a dental insurance(except for dentists and would be dentists and close relatives of dentists).In my husband's office where we accept all PPOs , there are hardly any patients who dunt have any dental insurance.Usually it is an emergency or somone who recently moved in town or changed jobs that they wudnt have a dental insurance.

We've been in practice for 23 years, it took us a very long time, about 20 years, to achieve an essentially fee for service practice. We practice in a very nice town, but not one where people's incomes are great. When we bought this, our only, practice in 1984, the dentist we bought it from was accepting Benecare as well as some other very poor plans. His patients were very negligent in regard to paying their portions. As our practice grew we started accepting lots of "better" PPO's, never HMO's. We were putting in a lot of hours between us. But after two decades of this, anyway we sliced and diced it we were working a lot of hours and writing off a lot, too much in our opinion. We just decided that we would go for it, one way or the other. We had lived well within our means and had been carefully paying off all manner of debts in our 40's. So even a reduced income, reduced hours, would be managable and better for our backs, necks and hearing too. Over the course of less than one year, we informed our patients and the insurance companies that we would no longer be participating with their PPO's. The only exception is Delta Premier. It was a difficult period. Patients were asking us if we would change our minds, coming in with several different plans that their work offered to see if any were acceptable. We lost some patients, but not as many as we expected. Many of our patients have dental insurance and we accept their allowance towards our fees, but our fees are our fees. I think patients come back to us because they know and trust us. We have never done anything because of the money. We don't push dentistry and treatment options are provided to our patients. The choices are up to them. We try to meet their expectations to the very best of our abilities. Moreover, I think my husband and I do care about our work, our patients and their satisfaction with the work we do. We appreciate our patients. It can happen for your husband, be ready to change your mindset, your staffs and maybe your hours and income. The income doesn't suffer too much even on a reduced schedule if you stop giving half of it away.😉 Things seemed to work out well for us. Who knows what the next decade will bring? As long as we all have good health and the ability to work, even if there is paradigm shift in health care, we'll continue to "work it out." For now, we're enjoying things just the way they are! Good luck.

 

[Daurang]

Lesley,

23 years is a long time! I started by practice from scratch 6 years ago and plan to retire in 4 years. I am assuming that if you were to stop working tomorrow, you'd have more than enough money and interests collected from your savings to live the rest of your life very comfortably. What keeps you going for so long? I have never understood dentists who works past their 50, 60, or 70's.

 

[helpfuldoc2b]

Lesley,

23 years is a long time! I started by practice from scratch 6 years ago and plan to retire in 4 years. I am assuming that if you were to stop working tomorrow, you'd have more than enough money and interests collected from your savings to live the rest of your life very comfortably. What keeps you going for so long? I have never understood dentists who works past their 50, 60, or 70's.

What was your secret for success, how did you pay off the loans, buy the practice, accumulate so much profit that you can go from scratch and crap loads of loans to being comfortable to retire as you say, which i assume you will be a millionaire by then if your planning on retirement.

 

[nhasigioi]

Lesley,

23 years is a long time! I started by practice from scratch 6 years ago and plan to retire in 4 years. I am assuming that if you were to stop working tomorrow, you'd have more than enough money and interests collected from your savings to live the rest of your life very comfortably. What keeps you going for so long? I have never understood dentists who works past their 50, 60, or 70's.

Many dentists practice for a long time because they enjoy doing it. Are you thinking about retiring in your home country? 😀

 

[Lesley]

Lesley,

23 years is a long time! I started by practice from scratch 6 years ago and plan to retire in 4 years. I am assuming that if you were to stop working tomorrow, you'd have more than enough money and interests collected from your savings to live the rest of your life very comfortably. What keeps you going for so long? I have never understood dentists who works past their 50, 60, or 70's.

I expect we'll be working into our 60's, one way or another, and many others will too. Although, we did get rid of all of our debt, school loans, mortgage, business and are not accumulating any debt for our children's college education there's more to do. So, we can't retire, not yet, but we do, can and will make choices about our future work efforts and, today, that is a luxury. Our biggest expense by far has been education. In today's dollars, the cost we wholly absorbed for our educations and our children's exceeds the present value of our home and practice. Yikes! Honestly. Twenty years worth of education. My husband paid for his undergrad and d-school. I had some help for undergrad but paid for d-school, and we're doing four years a piece for each child at the college of their choice. By our early 40's we paid off our mortgage and school loans and a couple of years later all business notes. A 15 year mortgage is a plus when your interest rate is 12%, and a ten year repayment plan for our school debt was also a plus as prime was between 10-20% during repayment. We made choices to shelf debt as opposed to increase savings. The interest rates at the time were a major factor in our decision. However, as soon as possible we began saving for our children's education and our retirement. We had people discuss with us what our kids' education would cost today based on their ages back then. Athough we were floored with the numbers, surprisingly, it's much more than they even suggested. Simple IRA's did not exist until 1997, and we could not afford 401K plans due to the monthly notes on our business, mortgage, school loans, plus our day care expenses, so the most we could put away was $2,000/a piece/a year. So, retirement savings are a weak link. But we are moving forward and we'll get there, one way or another. I'm not sure I dislike working, so it's not a problem for me. Work can be frustrating, but I think I like it for the most part, at least my patient's tell me I do. 😉 BTW, a million dollars at retirement, does not sound like it's going to do it for most people! But, we will all do the best we can and make do the best with that! We're not different than anybody else, we move forward one step at a time. Good Luck.

 

[Tooth]

Lesley,

23 years is a long time! I started by practice from scratch 6 years ago and plan to retire in 4 years. I am assuming that if you were to stop working tomorrow, you'd have more than enough money and interests collected from your savings to live the rest of your life very comfortably. What keeps you going for so long? I have never understood dentists who works past their 50, 60, or 70's.

What city are you working out of? Los Angeles, New York, Chicago?

 

[docj1]

Lesley,

23 years is a long time! I started by practice from scratch 6 years ago and plan to retire in 4 years. I am assuming that if you were to stop working tomorrow, you'd have more than enough money and interests collected from your savings to live the rest of your life very comfortably. What keeps you going for so long? I have never understood dentists who works past their 50, 60, or 70's.

I could retire right now and move to mexico and be a big shot. But I think I'll work awhile longer and retire to somewhere on a golf course in the US

 

[OceanBlue]

Many dentists practice for a long time because they enjoy doing it. Are you thinking about retiring in your home country? 😀

haha...he's thinking about retiring in four yrs and chillin' out on Nha Trang Beach with a bunch of hot mamas. I think "toothache" is getting ahead of himself....

 

[HuyetKiem]

haha...he's thinking about retiring in four yrs and chillin' out on Nha Trang Beach with a bunch of hot mamas. I think "toothache" is getting ahead of himself....

yeah.... where I'm going to retire in 20 yrs 🙂 🙂 Nha Trang is famous with those romantic coffee shops.

 

[gochi]

Hey,

I dont understand something I should....why does it take such a long time to pay dental loans...OK, so d-school costs 200 000, and over 4 years it goes upto 250 000, but if you work for 5-6 and get paid 80000/yr it can easily be paid off right ?

 

[aphistis]

Hey,

I dont understand something I should....why does it take such a long time to pay dental loans...OK, so d-school costs 200 000, and over 4 years it goes upto 250 000, but if you work for 5-6 and get paid 80000/yr it can easily be paid off right ?

Yeah, but the loans are cheap, so there's not much incentive to pay them off. Some people (like me) would rather stretch it out over as long a time as possible, to free up as much money as possible for more profitable ventures.

 

[Daurang]

I had the same thought as you aphistis. Unfortunately, my supposedly profitable venture in stocks and real estates have tanked pretty badly. It's tough paying off your school loan and more tempting to shift those money laying around into hot ventures thinking you can make more money. I should have paid off my loans early and kept all my money, but instead lost enough to set me back at least a year. Just pay off your loans FIRST and don't invest money you can't afford to loose.

 

[Daurang]

In Nha Trang, do they have authentic good taco al pastor, body sushi, brazilian churrascaria, cuban sandwich, argentinian beef, mongolian hotpot, korean bbq, Louisiana spicy crawfish, southern fried chicken, new england clam chowder, InNOut burger, Round Table pizza? No?! I guess I'll stay here then. For a much more spectacular beach I'll just hit the Cayman or Cancun. For tropical fruits, all the best stuff is exported to Canada so I'll just go there.

 

[Lesley]

I had the same thought as you aphistis. Unfortunately, my supposedly profitable venture in stocks and real estates have tanked pretty badly. It's tough paying off your school loan and more tempting to shift those money laying around into hot ventures thinking you can make more money. I should have paid off my loans early and kept all my money, but instead lost enough to set me back at least a year. Just pay off your loans FIRST and don't invest money you can't afford to loose.

I agree. Paying loans off is a guaranteed investment. Not to be morbid, but because interest rates were the way they were, we felt sort of forced to approach our debt the way we did. It ended up that our circumstance which seemed so hapless was, in the end, fortuitous. We lost money too when the stock market went down in 2000-2001, most everybody did, but it would have been much worse had we funneled more money into investments instead our debts. I can't say we could afford to loose the money we lost, it will have to be gained back by working longer and/or smarter, but we're much better off than if we had invested more. Good Luck everyone!🙂

 

[aphistis]

I agree. Paying loans off is a guaranteed investment. Not to be morbid, but because interest rates were the way they were, we felt sort of forced to approach our debt the way we did. It ended up that our circumstance which seemed so hapless was, in the end, fortuitous. We lost money too when the stock market went down in 2000-2001, most everybody did, but it would have been much worse had we funneled more money into investments instead our debts. I can't say we could afford to loose the money we lost, it will have to be gained back by working longer and/or smarter, but we're much better off than if we had invested more. Good Luck everyone!🙂

Oh, sure. Particularly with high-interest debt, I would never argue with someone who said they wanted to pay off their liabilities first. Using myself as an example, though, my student loans are locked in at about 3.5%, so after inflation I'm only accumulating a percentage point or two of real interest per year. Even ignoring inflation, you'd earn more than 3.5% just putting the money into CDs.

I can certainly respect the perspective of folks who would rather pay off the obligation and be done with it. I do believe, though, that in certain cases (such as mine) you can earn more with the money without being reckless or abandoning discipline.

 

[Lesley]

Oh, sure. Particularly with high-interest debt, I would never argue with someone who said they wanted to pay off their liabilities first. Using myself as an example, though, my student loans are locked in at about 3.5%, so after inflation I'm only accumulating a percentage point or two of real interest per year. Even ignoring inflation, you'd earn more than 3.5% just putting the money into CDs.

I can certainly respect the perspective of folks who would rather pay off the obligation and be done with it. I do believe, though, that in certain cases (such as mine) you can earn more with the money without being reckless or abandoning discipline.

Yep. Everyone has to assess their own situations and make the best moves they can. There is no one recipe for financial success or personal happiness. As I've said before in the financial section, if we had low interest rates on our school loans maybe we would still be paying them off now. 😉 As I've gotten older I've gotten much more sensitive to two things, risk and interest rates. In regard to risk, I don't like it! In regard to interest, I would much prefer to receive it than pay it, but saving comes with a cost. When I save money, not only do I have to worry about inflation, but I also have to worry about taxes. Safe, less risky, investments are not taxed at the capital gains rate of 15% like stocks but at an individual's federal and state income tax rate. Taking that into account, if I were paying off a student loan with an interest rate of 4-5%+ and I had that money sitting in a safe, taxable account even earning as much as 6%, I, in my opinion, after taxes and inflation, would be better off financially getting rid of the debt. Maybe not everyone shares that opinion, but that is mine. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." and adding to that, "To each his own." Have a nice weekend.🙂

 

[Lemming]

or my oriental assistant converses in Portuguese with them.

Assistants are asian, rugs are oriental.

 

[Drill2Fill]

Assistants are asian, rugs are oriental.

 

[Jaybe]

Assistants are asian, rugs are oriental.

Actually, 'oriental' just means eastern. It really is not a racial slur, per se.

Somehow along the way, eastern people have decided that it was an offensive adjective. There is an interesting Usage Note at dictionary.com that sort of explains this:

Oriental.

 

[armorshell]

Can I start calling white people occidental?

 

[shamrock2006]

Hey,

I dont understand something I should....why does it take such a long time to pay dental loans...OK, so d-school costs 200 000, and over 4 years it goes upto 250 000, but if you work for 5-6 and get paid 80000/yr it can easily be paid off right ?

yea but you also have to take into account all of your other expenses. you'll have loans (w/ interest), car payments, mortages, insurance, family (if you have one) and whatever else you can possibly think of. You will make more than 80k..but still all depends on how much you want to pay off at a time. Some will say pay off as much as possible as SOON as possible. Others will tell you to stretch it out. It all really depends on how you plan on living post d-school. But that's just my opinion...i'm sure you'll get many others along the way.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Using myself as an example, though, my student loans are locked in at about 3.5%, so after inflation I'm only accumulating a percentage point or two of real interest per year. Even ignoring inflation, you'd earn more than 3.5% just putting the money into CDs.

I can certainly respect the perspective of folks who would rather pay off the obligation and be done with it. I do believe, though, that in certain cases (such as mine) you can earn more with the money without being reckless or abandoning discipline.

I'm in a similar situation. I have private loans, and those will be a priority for me, but that 3.5 gets lowered another .25 for direct deposit payment, and another .5 after 2 years of consecutive payments not missed. That brings it to 2.75%, which is even better.

 

[OceanBlue]

Actually, 'oriental' just means eastern. It really is not a racial slur, per se.

Somehow along the way, eastern people have decided that it was an offensive adjective. There is an interesting Usage Note at dictionary.com that sort of explains this:

Oriental.

Maybe because it's the way people are using it. It's like you're saying "crackers" are delicious snack food, but somehow along the way westerners decided that it was an offensive noun when easterners and black people use it. Think a little bit will ya? 🙄

 

[OceanBlue]

In Nha Trang, do they have authentic good taco al pastor, body sushi, brazilian churrascaria, cuban sandwich, argentinian beef, mongolian hotpot, korean bbq, Louisiana spicy crawfish, southern fried chicken, new england clam chowder, InNOut burger, Round Table pizza? No?! I guess I'll stay here then. For a much more spectacular beach I'll just hit the Cayman or Cancun. For tropical fruits, all the best stuff is exported to Canada so I'll just go there.

Wow...you must have diarrhea everyday.

 

[HuyetKiem]

In Nha Trang, do they have authentic good taco al pastor, body sushi, brazilian churrascaria, cuban sandwich, argentinian beef, mongolian hotpot, korean bbq, Louisiana spicy crawfish, southern fried chicken, new england clam chowder, InNOut burger, Round Table pizza? No?! I guess I'll stay here then. For a much more spectacular beach I'll just hit the Cayman or Cancun. For tropical fruits, all the best stuff is exported to Canada so I'll just go there.

hm..... sounds like Houston 😀 😀 😀

 

[nhasigioi]

In Nha Trang, do they have authentic good taco al pastor, body sushi, brazilian churrascaria, cuban sandwich, argentinian beef, mongolian hotpot, korean bbq, Louisiana spicy crawfish, southern fried chicken, new england clam chowder, InNOut burger, Round Table pizza? No?! I guess I'll stay here then. For a much more spectacular beach I'll just hit the Cayman or Cancun. For tropical fruits, all the best stuff is exported to Canada so I'll just go there.

😱 😀 Hope things work out as you plan.

 

[Tooth]

Can I start calling white people occidental?

 

[helpfuldoc2b]

No. but can we call find out your so called 10 year retirement plan you claim and exact figures.

 

[armorshell]

No. but can we call find out your so called 10 year retirement plan you claim and exact figures.

I know a guy on a 15 year retirement plan, who associates 70 hours a week 😱

 

[helpfuldoc2b]

I know a guy on a 15 year retirement plan, who associates 70 hours a week 😱

What do you guys consider retirement age/financial wise and how is it feasible with all the loans/taxes/life, marriage kids expenses, etc... Share the secrets...

 

[OceanDMD]

How many kids? Are your kids going to college? Do you want to live in Hilton Head or West Virginia?..etc....etc... How can you really know how much money it takes. I am content fishing off the beach and drinking beer, it may take less money for me than someone who wants to travel the world sampling the regional wine. Consult with your friendly financial advisor. A good one will take the information from you about these things, plug it into a formula, and spit out how much you need to save/invest.

 

[tissy]

Is the contract in AZ? I heard AZ, NV, and NM are in need of dentist so thats where the moneys at. I have a friend who just graduated from Boston and started his own practice in Las Vegas; now making around 1 million a year b/c he has 12 chairs.

My class graduates next month. Of my fellow classmates that are entering associateships the lowest starting salary I know of is $110k/year. That's 4 days a week, but I don't know how many hours a day or what vacation time he gets, etc.

Others have signed contracts for $120-140k/year.

 

[docj1]

How can you really know how much money it takes. I am content fishing off the beach and drinking beer.

Me too, but I like to Bass fish from a boat and drink beer after. But your point is perfect. What alot of dentists don't realize is that it's not a competition to see who makes more money. It should be about what lifestyle you want to live. As a dentist you can pretty much live whatever lifestyle you want. But the tricky part is that you have to practice in the area that allows you to make the income required to live that lifestyle. Far to many dentists out of school think that you have to see lots of patients and work lots of hours to make alot of $. This is only true until you own your own practice.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Is the contract in AZ? I heard AZ, NV, and NM are in need of dentist so thats where the moneys at. I have a friend who just graduated from Boston and started his own practice in Las Vegas; now making around 1 million a year b/c he has 12 chairs.

No, the low contract I was mentioning is in Oregon.

 

[Dental916]

A little off topic, so when you're in your senior year, graduation is near...what kind of steps should one take to look for a job, look at classifieds where you want to practice etc?