How much has your yearly production increased over time?

[monkeykey]

Hi doctors! I am curious to hear about how your production has increased as you got more experienced and what you think is the average for most dentists but that's not the point. I am looking for an AVERAGE estimate and I know it varies drastically depending on a million variables. I have absolutely no Idea how much a newly started dentist can produce.

Also please post if you attended a GPR or AEGD

Example:

Year 1: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

Year 2: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

Year 3: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

Year 5: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

Year 10: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

If you feel like you've plateaued how long did it take and why?

Also what do you think would be a good predictor of how fast you will be at dentistry before being trained? Say how fast you can type? If your production increased significantly what did you do to change it?

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[TanMan]

Hi doctors! I am curious to hear about how your production has increased as you got more experienced and what you think is the average for most dentists but that's not the point. I am looking for an AVERAGE estimate and I know it varies drastically depending on a million variables. I have absolutely no Idea how much a newly started dentist can produce.

Also please post if you attended a GPR or AEGD

Example:

Year 1: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

Year 2: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

Year 3: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

Year 5: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

Year 10: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

If you feel like you've plateaued how long did it take and why?

Also what do you think would be a good predictor of how fast you will be at dentistry before being trained? Say how fast you can type? If your production increased significantly what did you do to change it?

I've plateaued around year 3-4 (need to look at numbers to get a better answer). I'm stuck at around 3-3.2/year at this time. I wish I knew the answer as to why I've plateaued, but I think there's multiple variables including the population, # of chairs, # of dentists in my area, and conservative treatment planning.

Best predictor for success in dentistry? Personality and attitude towards getting work done. I put my bets on someone who can sell ice to an eskimo and has the "just do it and get it over with" attitude. The jump in my production occurred when I doubled my chairs. Unfortunately, it wasn't a proportional increase. I doubled my chairs, but only increased production by around 40-50%.

I'll probably get you some more concrete numbers later on.

 

[bracketbuster68]

I've plateaued around year 3-4 (need to look at numbers to get a better answer). I'm stuck at around 3-3.2/year at this time. I wish I knew the answer as to why I've plateaued, but I think there's multiple variables including the population, # of chairs, # of dentists in my area, and conservative treatment planning.

Best predictor for success in dentistry? Personality and attitude towards getting work done. I put my bets on someone who can sell ice to an eskimo and has the "just do it and get it over with" attitude. The jump in my production occurred when I doubled my chairs. Unfortunately, it wasn't a proportional increase. I doubled my chairs, but only increased production by around 40-50%.

I'll probably get you some more concrete numbers later on.

Sooo, how do you sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves?

 

[beannaithe]

For me, production as increased over the years. I had a big jump around year 4-5 (things kinda clicked for me around here) and it has gone up every year since. Not a big jump, but still a bit more each year. I got more confident in treatment planning and talking to patients about treatment. It also helped that I've been associating at the same office for years. Building relationships where patients trusted me to discuss more complex cases was huge. I also have a lot of big treatment plans that I've had "in the works" for years. And people will do the work when they're ready. So a lot of my bigger implant cases and Invisalign and etc, are finally ready.

 

[TanMan]

Hi doctors! I am curious to hear about how your production has increased as you got more experienced and what you think is the average for most dentists but that's not the point. I am looking for an AVERAGE estimate and I know it varies drastically depending on a million variables. I have absolutely no Idea how much a newly started dentist can produce.

Also please post if you attended a GPR or AEGD

Example:

Year 1: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

Year 2: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

Year 3: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

Year 5: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

Year 10: Me ($XXXXX), people I knew($XXXXX)

If you feel like you've plateaued how long did it take and why?

Also what do you think would be a good predictor of how fast you will be at dentistry before being trained? Say how fast you can type? If your production increased significantly what did you do to change it?

As promised, here are some numbers. These are production numbers, not adjusted for writeoffs/adjustments. Also, I did not include the partial year that I first started (Only had 3.5 months of revenue info).
Year 1: 1.63
Year 2: 2.39
Year 3: 2.86
Year 4: 2.89

The answer to your previous question, I did not do an AEGD/GPR

Reflecting on what I did to get out of that 2.8-3.0 rut that I was at, I realized that I had to cut out unprofitable procedures and dominate the ad market more. By cutting out unprofitable procedures and advertising more, I was able to increase production and reduce expenses. Unfortunately, I'm stuck again at a new level and the gain was not as considerable as adding more chairs. I'm hoping that the store next door closes so I can add another 7 chairs.

 

[monkeykey]

As promised, here are some numbers. These are production numbers, not adjusted for writeoffs/adjustments. Also, I did not include the partial year that I first started (Only had 3.5 months of revenue info).
Year 1: 1.63
Year 2: 2.39
Year 3: 2.86
Year 4: 2.89

The answer to your previous question, I did not do an AEGD/GPR

Reflecting on what I did to get out of that 2.8-3.0 rut that I was at, I realized that I had to cut out unprofitable procedures and dominate the ad market more. By cutting out unprofitable procedures and advertising more, I was able to increase production and reduce expenses. Unfortunately, I'm stuck again at a new level and the gain was not as considerable as adding more chairs. I'm hoping that the store next door closes so I can add another 7 chairs.

So you were producing 1.63M your first year out of dental school? This is unheard of. Is speed the barrier for most people or lack of patients to treat? What do you think is normal for a new graduate?

 

[TanMan]

Ah, I misread your question. First year out, I was about 900k working for a corporate office, then about 1.1 for the second office that had better compensation. I only lasted about 18 months between both offices, so these are averaged based on my monthly production/pay. Year 1-4 is when I had my own office. So... Year 1 is technically my 3rd year of practicing

In corporate, my limitation was that I just didn't have enough good productive patients. It was sheer volume of unpredictable medicaid patients. I was at the mercy of how well they could bring patients into the office.

I think that for most people, it's speed. A lot of 1st years are slow as molasses, but for me, I think it was just not enough patients.

A new graduate can probably expect to produce 3-4k/day. The slowest one in corporate was doing 1k/day, but they were starving.

 

[monkeykey]

Hmmm so by this logic if the corporate office pays you 30% of collections you’d still be making $210K your first year out which still seems high. Most people complain that they start making $120K a year.

 

[TanMan]

Hmmm so by this logic if the corporate office pays you 30% of collections you’d still be making $210K your first year out which still seems high. Most people complain that they start making $120K a year.

120k if you're in a big city making 400-500/day fixed and/or just not making any bonus money. I didn't last a year with either and jumped ship on the first one because I wasn't making enough money. Both go back to poor compensation, not enough patients, the dentist is just really slow/bad personality, and/or poor sales staff. As an associate, you have control over your speed and personality. If you do the selling, you have the power to sell procedures

 

[beannaithe]

Hmmm so by this logic if the corporate office pays you 30% of collections you’d still be making $210K your first year out which still seems high. Most people complain that they start making $120K a year.

Keep in mind there is a huge difference between PRODUCTION and COLLECTIONS. Production is on set office fees before insurance write offs, patients not paying their bills, and any other adjustments. Collections is how much money you actually receive from insurance/patient payments. There is also ADJUST PRODUCTION where it's how much the office expects to collect with insurance write offs and any other adjustments. Only a true FFS office will pay what the total production is. Depending on how many insurance patients you have and how their pay schedule is, you can do $3k in production and possibly only collect $2k. In a heavy PPO practice, this is very normal. In a Medicaid office, the collections will be a lot lower. In an HMO office, it is possible to have a $3k production day and actually collect $0 if everything is in the patient's "covered" services with no upgrades.

 

[beannaithe]

Hmmm so by this logic if the corporate office pays you 30% of collections you’d still be making $210K your first year out which still seems high. Most people complain that they start making $120K a year.

Remember that corps have systems in place to keep as much money in house as possible. THat 30% of collections is not just a straight 30% of collections. There are usually ways for them to keep as much money as possible while keeping you at the day rate. $120k seems pretty standard these days for a 4 day work week.

 

[TanMan]

Exactly. Production is not a great benchmark of profitability. Collections is way better. In an ideal PPO/FFS practice, production should be very close to collections. Now that I think about it, the 1st year numbers I gave you were collections, not production. I extrapolated the collection from my first paychecks. Think of the numbers I gave you as worse case scenarios.

 

[monkeykey]

Exactly. Production is not a great benchmark of profitability. Collections is way better. In an ideal PPO/FFS practice, production should be very close to collections. Now that I think about it, the 1st year numbers I gave you were collections, not production. I extrapolated the collection from my first paychecks. Think of the numbers I gave you as worse case scenarios.

I’m not necessarily looking at a straight profitability point of view. I’m simply trying to use production as a measure to quantify speed improvement and progression over time.

 

[PreDentTechySon]

As promised, here are some numbers. These are production numbers, not adjusted for writeoffs/adjustments. Also, I did not include the partial year that I first started (Only had 3.5 months of revenue info).
Year 1: 1.63
Year 2: 2.39
Year 3: 2.86
Year 4: 2.89

The answer to your previous question, I did not do an AEGD/GPR

Reflecting on what I did to get out of that 2.8-3.0 rut that I was at, I realized that I had to cut out unprofitable procedures and dominate the ad market more. By cutting out unprofitable procedures and advertising more, I was able to increase production and reduce expenses. Unfortunately, I'm stuck again at a new level and the gain was not as considerable as adding more chairs. I'm hoping that the store next door closes so I can add another 7 chairs.

when you say cutting out unprofitable procedures, what procedures were you finding unprofitable and how did you determine that? Did you find a niche for yourself based on what procedures you liked/excelled at or was it simply what your market or patient base needed?

 

[TanMan]

when you say cutting out unprofitable procedures, what procedures were you finding unprofitable and how did you determine that? Did you find a niche for yourself based on what procedures you liked/excelled at or was it simply what your market or patient base needed?

Unprofitable procedures: complete/partial/immediate dentures, 4 surface anterior composites that involve an incisal edge, uncooperative peds patient, trauma, orofacial pain (myofascial/TMD), and oral pathology. I determined that by looking at production/hour and relevant lab fees. Production/hour depends on compensation and doctor time (assistant time is fine because it's cheap compared to doctor time). Assistant time is worth anywhere from 15-30 dollars an hour, dentist time is worth 1500+/hour.

So... I end up referring most of my unprofitable procedures. This resulted in freeing up more of my time for the easier and more profitable procedures. Some people look at me like I'm insane for not doing the procedures mentioned above, but it's made my life so much easier and more profitable. Of course, in the early stage, you have to do everything to survive. Once you are saturated, you can cut back to unprofitable procedures to fit in more profitable procedures. There's always other dentists who will need to do those procedures to survive (or want).

My niche is emergency single tooth dentistry. Most people are procrastinators and will come in if there's an emergency. RCTBUCrn/retreats or ext/graft (with an occasional immediate implant or bridge) are my primary growth drivers. There is a subset of patients that tend to consume a lot of time... those that don't know where the pain is at, can't replicate, and have a long story to tell. That's where OFP comes in. When it comes to odontogenic pain, I'm the man for it. Coincidentally, it's what I like to do, it's what I'm good at, and it's what my market needs. The problem with being in the business of emergency dentistry is being able to separate odontogenic pain from non-odontogenic pain. Non-odontogenic pain patients take a lot longer to workup and fall into the unprofitable segment. I've learned to identify them as quickly as possible, as not to consume anymore time than needed and send out referrals asap.

 

[PreDentTechySon]

Unprofitable procedures: complete/partial/immediate dentures, 4 surface anterior composites that involve an incisal edge, uncooperative peds patient, trauma, orofacial pain (myofascial/TMD), and oral pathology. I determined that by looking at production/hour and relevant lab fees. Production/hour depends on compensation and doctor time (assistant time is fine because it's cheap compared to doctor time). Assistant time is worth anywhere from 15-30 dollars an hour, dentist time is worth 1500+/hour.

So... I end up referring most of my unprofitable procedures. This resulted in freeing up more of my time for the easier and more profitable procedures. Some people look at me like I'm insane for not doing the procedures mentioned above, but it's made my life so much easier and more profitable. Of course, in the early stage, you have to do everything to survive. Once you are saturated, you can cut back to unprofitable procedures to fit in more profitable procedures. There's always other dentists who will need to do those procedures to survive (or want).

My niche is emergency single tooth dentistry. Most people are procrastinators and will come in if there's an emergency. RCTBUCrn/retreats or ext/graft (with an occasional immediate implant or bridge) are my primary growth drivers. There is a subset of patients that tend to consume a lot of time... those that don't know where the pain is at, can't replicate, and have a long story to tell. That's where OFP comes in. When it comes to odontogenic pain, I'm the man for it. Coincidentally, it's what I like to do, it's what I'm good at, and it's what my market needs. The problem with being in the business of emergency dentistry is being able to separate odontogenic pain from non-odontogenic pain. Non-odontogenic pain patients take a lot longer to workup and fall into the unprofitable segment. I've learned to identify them as quickly as possible, as not to consume anymore time than needed and send out referrals asap.

Thanks for the response! That makes a lot of sense. It is difficult to take on cases where you know you’re going to have to babysit someone or deal with never ending adjustments/chair side laboratory time that isn’t profitable.

With your removable cases, do you just send those cases to another dentist, to prosth or do you just not see that many cases?

 

[TanMan]

Thanks for the response! That makes a lot of sense. It is difficult to take on cases where you know you’re going to have to babysit someone or deal with never ending adjustments/chair side laboratory time that isn’t profitable.

With your removable cases, do you just send those cases to another dentist, to prosth or do you just not see that many cases?

If the patient expresses that they need a denture or denture repair over the phone, we tend to directly refer them to another office to save me time and save them time/money just to be referred out. I send those cases to another dentist. If they can convert them to an all on X or hybrid, more power to them, but that's the implicit agreement. They take over the whole case, no harm, no foul, no questions, it's theirs, don't send them back to me. Some people may say that I'm leaving money on the table, but those types of cases require a lot of time/effort and the hourly drops compared to single tooth dentistry. Even worse, when it fails, you might end up in the negative, especially with all on X fixed prosthesis. The guy we refer to had to raise his prices due to increasing lab costs.

Our practice has evolved in that we hit our sweet spot of 25-54. Young people don't have much money (and a particular subset ask a ton of questions), Older people have most of their work done or complete medical history disasters with poor dental health/no money. You may notice a trend here that I don't like questions because they are non-billable hours.

 

[Extirpator]

If the patient expresses that they need a denture or denture repair over the phone, we tend to directly refer them to another office to save me time and save them time/money just to be referred out. I send those cases to another dentist. If they can convert them to an all on X or hybrid, more power to them, but that's the implicit agreement. They take over the whole case, no harm, no foul, no questions, it's theirs, don't send them back to me. Some people may say that I'm leaving money on the table, but those types of cases require a lot of time/effort and the hourly drops compared to single tooth dentistry. Even worse, when it fails, you might end up in the negative, especially with all on X fixed prosthesis. The guy we refer to had to raise his prices due to increasing lab costs.

Our practice has evolved in that we hit our sweet spot of 25-54. Young people don't have much money (and a particular subset ask a ton of questions), Older people have most of their work done or complete medical history disasters with poor dental health/no money. You may notice a trend here that I don't like questions because they are non-billable hours.

You produce 3 million out of a single office, with you as the sole provider, seeing mainly emergency visits?

 

[AONLINE]

I recently spoke with a dentist owner at a social event. His practice has 4 docs, 5 to 7 hygienists. He mentioned that his practice last year produced 6 millions, and he’ll probably be looking for 1 or 2 additional associates in about a year when they finish setting up their new location. This dentist and his owner partner have been practicing for 10 years, while the 2 associates are only 2 years out of school. The number 6 millions is mind-blowing to me. If the opportunity to associate at that practice is still around when I graduate, should I seriously consider it? What questions should I ask? Could this practice really support 1-2 more docs? I think I would need to see the production of each doc and the hygiene department.

 

[TanMan]

You produce 3 million out of a single office, with you as the sole provider, seeing mainly emergency visits?

Yes, not predominantly emergency visits, but about a third of the collections is emergency procedures this year.

I recently spoke with a dentist owner at a social event. His practice has 4 docs, 5 to 7 hygienists. He mentioned that his practice last year produced 6 millions, and he’ll probably be looking for 1 or 2 additional associates in about a year when they finish setting up their new location. This dentist and his owner partner have been practicing for 10 years, while the 2 associates are only 2 years out of school. The number 6 millions is mind-blowing to me. If the opportunity to associate at that practice is still around when I graduate, should I seriously consider it? What questions should I ask? Could this practice really support 1-2 more docs? I think I would need to see the production of each doc and the hygiene department.

Depends on the demand of the new location. If the locations are too close to each other, they may just end up cannibalizing each other's production resulting in lower production per doctor. Also, depends on how well they can ramp up their new office location. I assume that since they are seasoned veterans, that they should be able to do so. You need to see if the owners are disproportionately producing or not. The reason is because if they are, then they are getting all the good profitable procedures, leaving the associates with scraps.

I'd want to know compensation, procedure mix, how many patients are they able to bring in, etc... pretty much what factors will maximize your profit. Production is not as important as collections, unless you get paid on production and not collections. If you get paid on production, produce away and it doesn't matter if they collect. If compensation is based on collections, then you have to care whether they can collect or not.

 

[laundry]

Mine's a bit complex, as I have a 50% partner and was still in full time grad school when we opened our first practice. Aside from that, here goes:
Yr1 = insignificant (moonlighting on weekends, full time grad school work)
Yr2 = 1.45 (partnering to open first office, still full time student)
Yr3 = 1.65 (finished grad school)
Yr4 = 1.85
Yr5 = 2.8 (second office acquired)
Yr6 = 3.2
Yr7 = 3.8

 

[ToothJockey]

How are you guys producing 3 million+?

Assuming you work 225 days a year, that's over 13k a day. What does a typical day look like, procedure wise?

 

[monkeykey]

Mine's a bit complex, as I have a 50% partner and was still in full time grad school when we opened our first practice. Aside from that, here goes:
Yr1 = insignificant (moonlighting on weekends, full time grad school work)
Yr2 = 1.45 (partnering to open first office, still full time student)
Yr3 = 1.65 (finished grad school)
Yr4 = 1.85
Yr5 = 2.8 (second office acquired)
Yr6 = 3.2
Yr7 = 3.8

Are you a specialist? What kind of grad school are you referring to?

 

[laundry]

Do you think with a recession tuition prices would go down or schools would be easier to get into?

Does anyone have any kind of data on this? It only makes economic sense

How are you guys producing 3 million+?

Assuming you work 225 days a year, that's over 13k a day. What does a typical day look like, procedure wise?

Are you a specialist? What kind of grad school are you referring to?

Monkey - Grad school = PhD (I'm a dual degree grad from UCSF). And I'm a GP.

T-Jockey = I have two office, one produces around 2 mil, another one around 1.8. It's really not difficult if you know what you are doing (I happen to consult on this stuff professionally). If we were Delta Premier, we would be doing closer to 5 mil....I really hope this anti-trust class action against Delta changes things, but I digress..