First Year Experience

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vasco

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I just finished my first year as a practicing dentist. For those students who are interested I thought I would share my experience.

I took a job offer from a corporate company. I got the job offer in December before I graduated. They offered me 132K plus benefits if I collected more money than my salary I would be paid the difference. I decided to go corporate because I thought that I would make more money right out of school and because I figured that I would see more patients than if I took an associate position at a private office.

The hardest part of starting my career was learning how to treatment plan a case in five minutes. After a couple days it becomes second nature. I was so tired for the first couple weeks…then you eventually get used to it.
I started working 28 hours two weeks out of the month and then 32 hours the other two weeks. It was awesome. So much better than school. I realized quickly that dentistry was a hidden gem…we don’t work very hard (relative), we work few hours, and we make above average income. I enjoyed my days off and getting my feet wet with dentistry.

Financial

My biggest problem with the company is that I get paid on collections not production. I understand why they do this…but I hate it. I net produced (production – write offs, adjustments, discounts, refunds) 812K for the year. I averaged a 36 hour work week. My take home from this was 226K. I paid 74K in taxes. The kicker here is that I actually produced 252K! So I still have some receivables out there. I’m averaging 90% collections so I should eventually end up with more money. As far as money goes there was plenty to go around the first year. I still lived frugal for the most part..had reasonable housing arrangements, bought a new accord instead of something fancier….ect. It was a lot of fun to finally start making money in my life.

Loans:

I took out 274.5K in student loans. I left school with a total of 306K with loans and accrued interest. I switched to the extended payment plans and ended up with a total payment of around $2,100 a month. I used the full grace period and didn’t start making payments on my loans till December of my first year out. I paid off two of my loans for a total of 61K during the year which lowered my monthly payment to $1,600 a month. I’m excited about paying the next 30K note off in August…which should put me down to
around $1,300 a month.

Best Tech.
1)Isolite
2)Periolase
3)system B+ Obtura

Biggest Complications:
1) Sodium Hypochlorite accident (not directly my fault)
2) One palatal root elevated into the sinus

Overall I feel blessed to have a job. I love dentistry and what the field has to offer. I see a very bright future in the short and the long term. For those still in school hang in there. Life gets significantly better when you graduate!
 
Biggest Complications:
1) Sodium Hypochlorite accident (not directly my fault)
2) One palatal root elevated into the sinus

congrats! Sounds like you are enjoying your new job! Just curious, what did you do when you elevated the palatal root into the sinus? Did you remove it out yourself, or referred to oral surgeon? How did the patient react?

The main reason I ask is because I work with a bunch of other general dentists that doesn't like to do extractions because they are bunch of wussies. So guess who ends up doing most of the exo's... ME. I just want to be prepared just in case it ever happens to me. Thanks in advance!
 
Hey! Excellent post!
I just have a couple of questions for you:
What was the transition like from being a student to taking on the demands of a corporate dental office? Was speed an issue at all for you (aside from tx planning)? What is your general opinion of working corporate dentistry?
 
Such good posts on here lately. Thanks for the info.
 
sweet thread. this is the first positive review i've heard about corporate dentistry. the rumors i mostly hear are that the young dentists are hired and then worked to death until they burn out and quit. you're kind of blowing my mind right now. please continue! where in the country are you practicing?
 
Great thread.

I am also interested in how difficult it was to build up your speed, and how long it took.
 
What are the interest rates on your loans? Did you consolidate them for more then 10 years?
 
congrats! Sounds like you are enjoying your new job! Just curious, what did you do when you elevated the palatal root into the sinus? Did you remove it out yourself, or referred to oral surgeon? How did the patient react?

The main reason I ask is because I work with a bunch of other general dentists that doesn't like to do extractions because they are bunch of wussies. So guess who ends up doing most of the exo's... ME. I just want to be prepared just in case it ever happens to me. Thanks in advance!

It was pretty messed up. It was all my fault. I was extracting a tooth that I had no business extracting. Dilacertated roots radiographically in the sinus. I was too cocky. Decoronated #2, sectioned, ostectomy, elevated out mesial + distal roots. Couldn't get a good purchase on the palatal. The root continued to fracture under elevation. I got it down to just around 3mm and I was getting good movement with a root tip pick...but couldn't dislodge it. Then one second it was there and the next it wasn't. Took a pan...things looked fine...took a PA and there it was lying horizontal just over the socket. Tried to locate it myself and was unable to. Gelfoam, sutchers, primary closure, antihistamine, antibiotic, analgesics and written post op instructions and referral to my OS for removal. Pt did great. I had explained to the pt that both sinus exposure and root displacment were a possibility before we started. He took it well. OS removed it through lateral window. I was reading how if it is a small non-infected root piece some surgeons leave it and it will become encapsulated with fibrous connective tissue. My OS guy decided to remove it. Called to check on the patient many times...he healed just fine. Learning experience...learn when to punt!
 
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I really appreciate you sharing your experience with us.

Does "812K for the year. I averaged a 36 hour work week." mean from June (whenever you graduated, until December? How does this number compare to people in your class?


Again, thanks for sharing!
 
Hey! Excellent post!
I just have a couple of questions for you:
What was the transition like from being a student to taking on the demands of a corporate dental office? Was speed an issue at all for you (aside from tx planning)? What is your general opinion of working corporate dentistry?

I was so tired for the first couple weeks. Every day like a train hit me. Then you just get used to it. But with that said I remember going through the same thing when I started clinic in DS. I remember being exhausted for a while. It just took me about a week and then I was just fine with it all. I felt like DS held me back a ton. So I was ready to get up and go. I enjoyed working with patients and making them happy. So the transition was no problem.

Regarding speed, I was much slower for the first six months than my counterpart who had been out for a year. She was faster at everything. Then after 6 months we were pretty even.
 
sweet thread. this is the first positive review i've heard about corporate dentistry. the rumors i mostly hear are that the young dentists are hired and then worked to death until they burn out and quit. you're kind of blowing my mind right now. please continue! where in the country are you practicing?

I'm in NC. I knew that I wanted to do corporate and found a company called DentalOnePartners that I thought would do well. I'm very satisfied. I work with excellent equipment, well staffed office, and I control my treatments. I determine how many patients I want to see, who I will see, and what procedures I do. I can work as much or as little as I want. The downside of corporate is my income is limited. I don't receive profit sharing. I only get my percentage of collections. But with that said I don't have to do anything but the clinical side of dentistry.

I don't have any other experience than this, so I'm sure there is a much better brand of dentistry out there...but for now I'm very satisfied.
 
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What are the interest rates on your loans? Did you consolidate them for more then 10 years?

The highest rate I had were my grad plus loans at 8.5% So those are the ones I'm paying off first. I rode everything out to 25 years that I could.
 
I really appreciate you sharing your experience with us.

Does "812K for the year. I averaged a 36 hour work week." mean from June (whenever you graduated, until December? How does this number compare to people in your class?


Again, thanks for sharing!

I meant the first Fiscal year. 6/22/09-6/22/10. I'm not sure about my classmates. I don't have the production numbers in front of me...but I only made 72K from June to december, and 154K from Jan to June this year. So my speed and my scope of procedures increased dramatically toward the end of the year.
 
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R3.jpg

Sure I can extract your tooth!
 
That does look nasty! I remember the first time I saw a tooth extracted, it scared the hell out of me. She broke off a root way in the maxilla and had to use the drill to remove bits for like 30 minutes. My first thought was....geez... I didn't know that extractions were so hard. The next one I saw took about 2 minutes.
 
View attachment 15067

Sure I can extract your tooth!

wow, with such a curve on those roots i would never attempt that, especially with how close it is to the sinus! you live and you learn; i've definitely had my share of bad case selection and had to refer to the OS a few times, thats the best way to learn 🙂 and you quickly release that a good informed consent form is worth it's weight in gold!
 
Thanks for the response.

Looking back, what do you wish that you knew/did in dental school? Would you have taken any particular CE courses?

What percent of collections do they pay?
 
very excellent thread... reading every post in detail 🙂
 
Thanks for the response.

Looking back, what do you wish that you knew/did in dental school? Would you have taken any particular CE courses?

What percent of collections do they pay?

30%.

Come on DR, simple math. Even a perio wannabe should be able to handle that. 😀
 
Thanks for taking the time to post your first year experience! Congrats - you're an inspiration.
 
I also just finished my first year out. I thought about working for DentalOne, but never scheduled an interview because I was turned off by the corporate dentistry stigma.

What procedures are you not doing? I still don't do a ton of molar endo - maybe #19 or 30 if the patient refuses to go see the specialist. It takes me a couple of hours to properly do molar RCT, and I just feel like I could be more productive doing other procedures. We also have System B w/ Obtura, RootZX II, and ultrasonic, but we refer out most endo. Also don't feel completely comfortable without a scope. I don't extract impacted 3rds or if the roots are sitting on the IA. Also, I punt dentures and screaming kids to my boss or pedo. We don't sedate or papoose. I'm not doing implants or veneers, but would like to take CE to get into it eventually. I also really want to learn how to do crown lengthening. I guess I'm still kind of a wuss when it comes to dentistry. 🙂 Just curious what other dentists from my year are up to.
 
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Thanks for the response.

Looking back, what do you wish that you knew/did in dental school? Would you have taken any particular CE courses?

What percent of collections do they pay?

The only thing that I would have changed about dental school is I would have tried to enjoy it more. In the clinic I really felt that they were holding me back and it bothered me. I would have just relaxed and enjoyed my time more because you have the rest of your working life to do dentistry. As far as CE goes I wouldn't have changed a thing. I felt like I received a great clinical education in school.

They pay 32% or collections on everything but full removable dentures which they pay 18%.
 
I also just finished my first year out. I thought about working for DentalOne, but never scheduled an interview because I was turned off by the corporate dentistry stigma.

What procedures are you not doing? I still don't do a ton of molar endo - maybe #19 or 30 if the patient refuses to go see the specialist. It takes me a couple of hours to properly do molar RCT, and I just feel like I could be more productive doing other procedures. We also have System B w/ Obtura, RootZX II, and ultrasonic, but we refer out most endo. Also don't feel completely comfortable without a scope. I don't extract impacted 3rds or if the roots are sitting on the IA. Also, I punt dentures and screaming kids to my boss or pedo. We don't sedate or papoose. I'm not doing implants or veneers, but would like to take CE to get into it eventually. I also really want to learn how to do crown lengthening. I guess I'm still kind of a wuss when it comes to dentistry. 🙂 Just curious what other dentists from my year are up to.


I love endo. I try almost any endo and if I feel its out of my scope I'll call it quits and refer. I like the experience that it gives me. I use twisted files and i'll use carrier based, single cone, or warm verticle depending on the case. My bread and butter is the RCT+BU+Crown. I've done Invisalign, crown lengthening, gingivectomies, mini implants (overdenture), impacted thirds, and biopsies. I don't like doing impacted 3rd...i'm not fast enough and they are really far back. I love to do endo and extractions. I wont work on kids younger than 12. I hate dentures but do many of them because of pt need and they are lucrative. I want to get more into implants. I'm going to take 6-month smiles soon. The only things that I will refer now on the spot are kids under 12 for procedures, full bony 3rds, and any surgical posterior extractions on heavy set African American males.

Overall in my first year I feel like I've tried enough stuff to know what I like to do and what I feel like I can be good at.

Are you in private practice? What is that like?

I took a company offered lumaneers course. It was interesting. It has its place but isn't for everyone. One assistant wanted them after the course and we did them for free on her and she loves them. I thought they would look stupid but it turned out o.k.
 
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30%.

Come on DR, simple math. Even a perio wannabe should be able to handle that. 😀
armor, you can work for me. I love your math. That'd be 16k in my pockets (minus ~$10 for a perio probe key chain) and not yours 😉
 
I love endo. I try almost any endo and if I feel its out of my scope I'll call it quits and refer. I like the experience that it gives me. I use twisted files and i'll use carrier based, single cone, or warm verticle depending on the case. My bread and butter is the RCT+BU+Crown. I've done Invisalign, crown lengthening, gingivectomies, mini implants (overdenture), impacted thirds, and biopsies. I don't like doing impacted 3rd...i'm not fast enough and they are really far back. I love to do endo and extractions. I wont work on kids younger than 12. I hate dentures but do many of them because of pt need and they are lucrative. I want to get more into implants. I'm going to take 6-month smiles soon. The only things that I will refer now on the spot are kids under 12 for procedures, full bony 3rds, and any surgical posterior extractions on heavy set African American males.

Overall in my first year I feel like I've tried enough stuff to know what I like to do and what I feel like I can be good at.

Are you in private practice? What is that like?

I took a company offered lumaneers course. It was interesting. It has its place but isn't for everyone. One assistant wanted them after the course and we did them for free on her and she loves them. I thought they would look stupid but it turned out o.k.

hi vasco. Did you do a GPR or AEGD after school?
 
Are you in private practice? What is that like?

Doesn't seem like it's very much different from your experience, except that my bosses (partners) are always there. It's nice to have mentors, but I also find myself not going outside of my comfort zone as much because I know I can always punt to them or a specialist. I make 35% production, and take home about $15-17K a month working at a pretty comfortable pace. I pretty much never feel rushed and there is never any pressure to produce, so I must be making enough to keep the office happy. No benefits though, and I pay more taxes as a 1099. I work 4.5 days a week. Overall, I'm pretty happy. My last associate position (also private practice) straight out of school was a nightmare. Watch out for shady office managers!

My boss at my last job used Lumineers. One case looked like horse teeth, and I felt that the shade was too monochromatic/opaque. The other case, she had to send back for remakes repeatedly. Both patients came back several times due to the units falling off. Might have been operator error though.

Cool thread. Looks like you're getting a lot of experience.
 
Doesn't seem like it's very much different from your experience, except that my bosses (partners) are always there. It's nice to have mentors, but I also find myself not going outside of my comfort zone as much because I know I can always punt to them or a specialist. I make 35% production, and take home about $15-17K a month working at a pretty comfortable pace. I pretty much never feel rushed and there is never any pressure to produce, so I must be making enough to keep the office happy. No benefits though, and I pay more taxes as a 1099. I work 4.5 days a week. Overall, I'm pretty happy. My last associate position (also private practice) straight out of school was a nightmare. Watch out for shady office managers!

My boss at my last job used Lumineers. One case looked like horse teeth, and I felt that the shade was too monochromatic/opaque. The other case, she had to send back for remakes repeatedly. Both patients came back several times due to the units falling off. Might have been operator error though.

Cool thread. Looks like you're getting a lot of experience.


since you're in private practice, how did your office fill your schedule on day one? did you do some hygiene appts to meet the patients and introduce yourself, or did the office just start booking you restorative work straight out of the gate with patients that you've never met? also what part of the country are you working in? rural, suburb or city? are you working with the understanding that you'll buy in some time down the road, or is it strictly an associateship? 15-17k your 1st year out is killin it it in my book so congrats on all of your success! :clap:
 
since you're in private practice, how did your office fill your schedule on day one? did you do some hygiene appts to meet the patients and introduce yourself, or did the office just start booking you restorative work straight out of the gate with patients that you've never met? also what part of the country are you working in? rural, suburb or city? are you working with the understanding that you'll buy in some time down the road, or is it strictly an associateship? 15-17k your 1st year out is killin it it in my book so congrats on all of your success! :clap:

They hired me to replace another associate who left to open his own practice, so I was pretty busy from the start. Also, one partner is cutting hours to spend more time with her kids, and the other partner wants to focus on more advanced dentistry. That leaves plenty of grunt work like fillings for me to do. I found this trend to be very common when I was interviewing. I met 3 other dentists who just didn't feel like doing simple fillings and such anymore because they wanted to do FMR, ortho, etc. I work in a blue collar area about 15 minutes outside of a very big city. I have no interest in buying in because I'd like to have my own small bread & butter office one day. I think too many dentists working together will tend to bump heads. Thanks! At my first job out of school, I was making about $8K a month in a not so great office so I feel very blessed to have found a much better job in my 2nd year out.
 
How was CITA? and since you went to Case how did you find the patients?

CITA was nasty. I was so stressed for it. The company found patients for me. There are two portions..manikin and patient based. I flew to NC for the manikin and met the patients that the company found for me. It was really stressful. Just finding the patients was terrible. Then a month or so later I took the patient based portion. I always felt out of control. As far as the test went it was pretty laid back. I felt the grading was fair. I didn't do what I consider to be my best work and still got 92+ on everything after all was said and done. But with that said the pass rate is low. I was looking at other exams results from the same time and it was consistantly 60-70% pass rate. They failed the guy right next to me on the spot for leaving caries. They told him to pack up and go. My eye is twitching a little right now remembering the test!
 
Doesn't seem like it's very much different from your experience, except that my bosses (partners) are always there. It's nice to have mentors, but I also find myself not going outside of my comfort zone as much because I know I can always punt to them or a specialist. I make 35% production, and take home about $15-17K a month working at a pretty comfortable pace. I pretty much never feel rushed and there is never any pressure to produce, so I must be making enough to keep the office happy. No benefits though, and I pay more taxes as a 1099. I work 4.5 days a week. Overall, I'm pretty happy. My last associate position (also private practice) straight out of school was a nightmare. Watch out for shady office managers!

My boss at my last job used Lumineers. One case looked like horse teeth, and I felt that the shade was too monochromatic/opaque. The other case, she had to send back for remakes repeatedly. Both patients came back several times due to the units falling off. Might have been operator error though.

Cool thread. Looks like you're getting a lot of experience.

35% production sounds awesome. Sounds like you landed in a good associate position. I've got friends in associate positions in private practice that are not making near what you are. Most are on 500 daily.

What do you do for insurance?

What was the deal with the shady office manager? You've peaked my curiosity! I work with two other dentists now and they both stopped using lumineers due to fractures and remakes. If they do a no prep veneer now they use viva veneers.

What do you do for your lab bill? How many patients do you see a day? How do you handle new patients (who gets them)?
 
What do you do for insurance?

What was the deal with the shady office manager? You've peaked my curiosity! I work with two other dentists now and they both stopped using lumineers due to fractures and remakes. If they do a no prep veneer now they use viva veneers.

What do you do for your lab bill? How many patients do you see a day? How do you handle new patients (who gets them)?

I use Fortress for malpractice and Guardian for disability.

The shady office manager was just a miserable hag who thought that she was my boss. She would not give me access to the management software to track my production, so I never really knew how much I made. When I asked why I never made more than base salary, she would say that the office could not count certain procedures towards my production because insurance would not pay for it (bullsh*t). Once we ran out of nitrous, and she told me to just put the nasal hood on because the patient would not know the difference anyway. She would also tell me to add little things that I didn't do to my chart so that she could bill for it. I told my bosses, but they just said they'd "talk to her about it". They didn't seem to care much because she'd been with them for so long. I didn't feel that she had the credentials to be able to tell me what to do, and I didn't trust her at all with billing so I quit. I did not want to get in trouble for fraud over her billing "errors".

I pay half of my lab bill. I don't really keep track of how many patients, but yesterday I saw 15 (some were just exams). New patients go to hygiene and whoever is free will do the exam - certain doctors are better for certain patients (small kids, crazy patients, meth mouth), so we'll trade if we need to.
 
I just finished my first year as a practicing dentist. For those students who are interested I thought I would share my experience.

I took a job offer from a corporate company. I got the job offer in December before I graduated. They offered me 132K plus benefits if I collected more money than my salary I would be paid the difference. I decided to go corporate because I thought that I would make more money right out of school and because I figured that I would see more patients than if I took an associate position at a private office.

The hardest part of starting my career was learning how to treatment plan a case in five minutes. After a couple days it becomes second nature. I was so tired for the first couple weeks…then you eventually get used to it.
I started working 28 hours two weeks out of the month and then 32 hours the other two weeks. It was awesome. So much better than school. I realized quickly that dentistry was a hidden gem…we don’t work very hard (relative), we work few hours, and we make above average income. I enjoyed my days off and getting my feet wet with dentistry.

Financial

My biggest problem with the company is that I get paid on collections not production. I understand why they do this…but I hate it. I net produced (production – write offs, adjustments, discounts, refunds) 812K for the year. I averaged a 36 hour work week. My take home from this was 226K. I paid 74K in taxes. The kicker here is that I actually produced 252K! So I still have some receivables out there. I’m averaging 90% collections so I should eventually end up with more money. As far as money goes there was plenty to go around the first year. I still lived frugal for the most part..had reasonable housing arrangements, bought a new accord instead of something fancier….ect. It was a lot of fun to finally start making money in my life.

Loans:

I took out 274.5K in student loans. I left school with a total of 306K with loans and accrued interest. I switched to the extended payment plans and ended up with a total payment of around $2,100 a month. I used the full grace period and didn’t start making payments on my loans till December of my first year out. I paid off two of my loans for a total of 61K during the year which lowered my monthly payment to $1,600 a month. I’m excited about paying the next 30K note off in August…which should put me down to
around $1,300 a month.

Best Tech.
1)Isolite
2)Periolase
3)system B+ Obtura

Biggest Complications:
1) Sodium Hypochlorite accident (not directly my fault)
2) One palatal root elevated into the sinus

Overall I feel blessed to have a job. I love dentistry and what the field has to offer. I see a very bright future in the short and the long term. For those still in school hang in there. Life gets significantly better when you graduate!

This sounds like a great deal! thanks for sharing. Are offers like this common or was yours the exception? Would you say you were one of the best dental students in your class? Was your speed fast from the get-go or did you pick it up on the job? It seems like you're enjoying corporate dentistry. Do you see yourself opening up shop in the future? Again thanks for sharing this valuable information with us! 200k+ w/ benefits, working <40hrs/week, first year out of d-school is BOSS! 👍👍👍
 
Of course one of the best, he was in mayfield!! Ahh, good ole dr d. Good to see you're doing well "vasco"!
 
of course, Cornell and Mayfielf are 2 best groups at Case. 😀😀😀
 
This sounds like a great deal! thanks for sharing. Are offers like this common or was yours the exception? Would you say you were one of the best dental students in your class? Was your speed fast from the get-go or did you pick it up on the job? It seems like you're enjoying corporate dentistry. Do you see yourself opening up shop in the future? Again thanks for sharing this valuable information with us! 200k+ w/ benefits, working <40hrs/week, first year out of d-school is BOSS! 👍👍👍

The offer is pretty standard for a corporate place, and pretty standard for DentalOnePartners. I would say that I was a pretty average dental student. My speed was pretty fast from the get-go; however, I became much faster as I developed systems per each individual procedure. Corporate is fine for now but I have desires of opening my own dental office in the future. Thanks for the nice words.
 
Of course one of the best, he was in mayfield!! Ahh, good ole dr d. Good to see you're doing well "vasco"!

Ah...the good old days. Good memories of the Mayfield group. I'm assuming you were in the group with me? Maybe sitting right behind the PCC?
 
I was thinking about the differences between corporate and private and one of the major downsides to working corporate is that we see (in general) more patients to produce the same amount as a dentist in private practice. I've spoken to dentists who work for my company who used to work in private practice and they all say that they would work te offs half as hard to make the same amount in private practice. We see and treat a lot of patients and due to our lower prices and insurance writeoffs make less than our private practice counterparts. Something to think about.
 
Might be a stupid question...
but you said you got 226K and paid 75K taxes. So is that 226K after taxes or before?

Also how is it possible to make that much when everyone keeps saying you are going to get 120K - taxes = ~80K your first year?
 
Might be a stupid question...
but you said you got 226K and paid 75K taxes. So is that 226K after taxes or before?

Also how is it possible to make that much when everyone keeps saying you are going to get 120K - taxes = ~80K your first year?

120k is the AVERAGE for an employed dentist. You can make more. The op landed a good job and is probably a good dentist
 
120k is the AVERAGE for an employed dentist. You can make more. The op landed a good job and is probably a good dentist

And he probably went somewhere where he had a great offer... he ALSO probably didn't say, "I want to live and practice in NYC or SoCal".

While I can say that I can appreciate the OP's message he/she is trying to get across, all the readers of this thread must understand that expecting to **net** produce >800k and taking home >200k in your first year is not something to expect. Certainly it is something to set your sights on doing eventually, but the OP probably has some methods/techniques worked out that works and teamed with good patient management, will work out in his favor.

His experience is fairly atypical of corporate dentistry. There are SOME good corporate jobs out there, but the VAST majority of them make you feel like you have sold your soul to the devil.
 
Ah...the good old days. Good memories of the Mayfield group. I'm assuming you were in the group with me? Maybe sitting right behind the PCC?

Yes sir, good guess.
 
Might be a stupid question...
but you said you got 226K and paid 75K taxes. So is that 226K after taxes or before?

Also how is it possible to make that much when everyone keeps saying you are going to get 120K - taxes = ~80K your first year?

The 226K was before taxes were taken out.
 
And he probably went somewhere where he had a great offer... he ALSO probably didn't say, "I want to live and practice in NYC or SoCal".

While I can say that I can appreciate the OP's message he/she is trying to get across, all the readers of this thread must understand that expecting to **net** produce >800k and taking home >200k in your first year is not something to expect. Certainly it is something to set your sights on doing eventually, but the OP probably has some methods/techniques worked out that works and teamed with good patient management, will work out in his favor.

His experience is fairly atypical of corporate dentistry. There are SOME good corporate jobs out there, but the VAST majority of them make you feel like you have sold your soul to the devil.

Well said.
 
Thank you for posting. Good read, and good to hear you're doing so well your first year out of school!
 
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