Graduating student question...

[Dental81]

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4th year dental student wanting to get some reality of the financial situation of the profession....
The ADA states that the average independent GP makes like 170k, but from all accounts that seems fairly low. A lawyer mentioned that his dental clients grossed 90k/ month on average. Judging that overhead is likely to be 60-70 percent it seems like dentists are more in the 250-300k range.
I would appreciate it is someone could comment on the discrepancy and give a realistic expectation of private practice earnings although I realize the variation is great....

 

[jackbauer!]

i can't say for sure, but the average is probably somewhere in between those two, but definitely closer to the $170k...

the net incomes of general dentists will vary greatly depending on how much they work and how savvy they are. plus, you have to think that dentists that have their personal CPAs/lawyers are much higher on the earnings spectrum.

jb!🙂

 

[vasco]

Over the summer some students and I took a tour of three different practices in the Cleveland metropolitan area. One was more downtownish, one was in a very wealthy suburb and the other was just in a normal middle class American suburb. They all had the newest gadgets...all digital + cerec machines ect. One doctor employed an associate, one doctor had a partner, and the other doctor was a solo guy. They were very open about who much they collected and what their overhead was. The overhead for all three practices ranged between 60-70% and all three doctors earned between 210 and 250 working 4 days a week. Two of the doctors were in their forties and the other one was in his thirties.

So after seeing these three practices and how they all operated very differently and they had a very different patient base and marketing tactics there really wasn't too different of a range in personal compensation.

I guess what I trying to say is that I learned that as long as you run a solid business you can expect to make between 200-250K as a general dentist.