Income and Cost

[harkkam]

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The debt of dental school is about 170k. You graduate at the age of 26-27 and make starting 85k. After taxes you make about 60k. That means 5k a month to spend on mortgage, debt, car etc.

So for the first years you pay 2000 dollars a month which equalls 24k for that year.

Say you make 85k for about three years. So thats 24k times three roughly 80k. SO now your 30 years old. You have about 3k every month on mortgage or rent or car payments.

So say at 30 you make 120k gross. that leaves you with about 85k and you have about 100,000 in loans left. Now you make 7k a month and you can pay maybe 3k or 4k depending on you situation towards your loan. At 4k a month for two years you can pay off about 100k. Now you have to add an extra year for intrest.

That means it took you about 6-7 years to pay that loan off.

But your living with 3k a month for 6 years. That means you will be 33-34 years old when the debt is paid.

At 3k a month, assume you pay 1800 in rent and 300 for your car. That give you 900 dollars for food, cable, savings, clothing, leisure etc.

If your less willing to live like a hermit for those years it will take longer maybe 10 years to pay your bill at the age of 36-37 is when you debt is paid off.

The debt in Dentistry is huge.

 

[johntara04]

The debt of dental school is about 170k. You graduate at the age of 26-27 and make starting 85k. After taxes you make about 60k. That means 5k a month to spend on mortgage, debt, car etc.

So for the first years you pay 2000 dollars a month which equalls 24k for that year.

Say you make 85k for about three years. So thats 24k times three roughly 80k. SO now your 30 years old. You have about 3k every month on mortgage or rent or car payments.

So say at 30 you make 120k gross. that leaves you with about 85k and you have about 100,000 in loans left. Now you make 7k a month and you can pay maybe 3k or 4k depending on you situation towards your loan. At 4k a month for two years you can pay off about 100k. Now you have to add an extra year for intrest.

That means it took you about 6-7 years to pay that loan off.

But your living with 3k a month for 6 years. That means you will be 33-34 years old when the debt is paid.

At 3k a month, assume you pay 1800 in rent and 300 for your car. That give you 900 dollars for food, cable, savings, clothing, leisure etc.

If your less willing to live like a hermit for those years it will take longer maybe 10 years to pay your bill at the age of 36-37 is when you debt is paid off.

The debt in Dentistry is huge.

Honestly, it is not that hard to make money in dentistry. I work for a doctor who was mad all day yesterday because the office "only" produced a little over $5,000. You may make less than $100,000 your first year out of dental school, but that is only because your clinical skills are not up to speed. After that first year you should be fast enough in most things to get your salary to at least $150,000. I posted this example in another thread:

If you work 240 days a year (48 weeks, 5 days a week. That gives you one month off a year), you should be making well over $100,000 a year as a dentist. Let's pretend that all you do is drill and fill. Just cavaties all day long. The only supplies you buy are for filling cavaties. That is all you do, you refer everything else out. You have one assistant, one front desk person, and one hygienist. That's all the employees you have. You are a small, small office. Your hygienist sees 5 patients a day. Let's say she sees 1 SRP and 4 Prophies and x-rays on 2 of the 4 patients. You see 10 patients a day, all with 1 filling. So you produce each day:

1 SRP: $150 a quad = $600
4 Prophies: $100 x 4 = $400
2 sets of x-rays: $50 x 2 = $100
8 fillings = $100 x 10 = $1000
Your office production = $2,100 a day, (240 x $2,100) $504,000 a year

Your overhead will be very, very small with three employees and two chairs. They say the average dental office is around 65% so we will go with that number, even though with only three employees (let's say you give them no benefits, a lot of practices don't) your overhead would only be about 45-50%. So, after you drill and fill all day long, you take home around 35% of what you produced. Let's say for arguments sake you only take home 25%. So, you take home at the end of the year around $126,000.

Also, if this was your practice, I would suggest you just fire your hygienist, train your assistant and fd person in both jobs and only have 2 employees and put the $50,000 you would have paid the hygienist back into your pocket and see their patients.

Now, this estimate is very, very low. If this was you and this was reality, your overhead would not be 75% as this example says. Your practice overhead would probably be 55-60% which means your income would be around $201,000-227,000. You may struggle that first year, you may struggle those first 5 years. But even after your seven years of struggling, you will be making (by this example, which is a low estimate) $15,000+ a month. And remember, by your example you will only be around 35 years old. Thirty-five and making about what a teacher makes every month. Not too bad. Better than 95% of the jobs out there.

So, the debt is big in dentistry, but if you are smart, the payoff is even bigger.

 

[JavadiCavity]

Great potential income comes at huge cost. I wouldn't sit around and crunch hypothetical numbers--either you'll err on the side of being to conservative or you'll err on the side of being to aggressive.

 

[thewatchtower]

The debt of dental school is about 170k. You graduate at the age of 26-27 and make starting 85k. After taxes you make about 60k. That means 5k a month to spend on mortgage, debt, car etc.

So for the first years you pay 2000 dollars a month which equalls 24k for that year.

Say you make 85k for about three years. So thats 24k times three roughly 80k. SO now your 30 years old. You have about 3k every month on mortgage or rent or car payments.

So say at 30 you make 120k gross. that leaves you with about 85k and you have about 100,000 in loans left. Now you make 7k a month and you can pay maybe 3k or 4k depending on you situation towards your loan. At 4k a month for two years you can pay off about 100k. Now you have to add an extra year for intrest.

That means it took you about 6-7 years to pay that loan off.

But your living with 3k a month for 6 years. That means you will be 33-34 years old when the debt is paid.

At 3k a month, assume you pay 1800 in rent and 300 for your car. That give you 900 dollars for food, cable, savings, clothing, leisure etc.

If your less willing to live like a hermit for those years it will take longer maybe 10 years to pay your bill at the age of 36-37 is when you debt is paid off.

The debt in Dentistry is huge.

what exactly is your point........to dissuade yourself from dental school or to convince those of us already there to jump ship?

 

[johntara04]

Great potential income comes at huge cost. I wouldn't sit around and crunch hypothetical numbers--either you'll err on the side of being to conservative or you'll err on the side of being to aggressive.

Duh. But you can get a good idea of what to expect from doing this.

You will crunch hypothetical numbers for the rest of your life when you do your taxes, so you better get used to it. The better you get at it the less headaches you will have come tax time.

 

[armorshell]

I think the biggest problem is people expect to be handed at their graduation the following things:
1. A dental diploma
2. Keys to their half million dollar house
3. Keys to their boat
4. Keys to their porsche
5. Keys to their half million dollar practice

People expec too much out of the title "Dr." Just because there is an expectation of a high living standard doesn't mean it's going to happen right away. Dentists have to budget just like everyone else, and the ones who manage their money most successfully will be...most successful 🙂

 

[tom_servo_dds]

The debt of dental school is about 170k. You graduate at the age of 26-27 and make starting 85k. After taxes you make about 60k. That means 5k a month to spend on mortgage, debt, car etc.

So for the first years you pay 2000 dollars a month which equalls 24k for that year.

Say you make 85k for about three years. So thats 24k times three roughly 80k. SO now your 30 years old. You have about 3k every month on mortgage or rent or car payments.

So say at 30 you make 120k gross. that leaves you with about 85k and you have about 100,000 in loans left. Now you make 7k a month and you can pay maybe 3k or 4k depending on you situation towards your loan. At 4k a month for two years you can pay off about 100k. Now you have to add an extra year for intrest.

That means it took you about 6-7 years to pay that loan off.

But your living with 3k a month for 6 years. That means you will be 33-34 years old when the debt is paid.

At 3k a month, assume you pay 1800 in rent and 300 for your car. That give you 900 dollars for food, cable, savings, clothing, leisure etc.

If your less willing to live like a hermit for those years it will take longer maybe 10 years to pay your bill at the age of 36-37 is when you debt is paid off.

The debt in Dentistry is huge.

Perception is reality. This "debt" is an investment.

 

[g3k]

The debt of dental school is about 170k. You graduate at the age of 26-27 and make starting 85k. After taxes you make about 60k. That means 5k a month to spend on mortgage, debt, car etc.

So for the first years you pay 2000 dollars a month which equalls 24k for that year.

Say you make 85k for about three years. So thats 24k times three roughly 80k. SO now your 30 years old. You have about 3k every month on mortgage or rent or car payments.

So say at 30 you make 120k gross. that leaves you with about 85k and you have about 100,000 in loans left. Now you make 7k a month and you can pay maybe 3k or 4k depending on you situation towards your loan. At 4k a month for two years you can pay off about 100k. Now you have to add an extra year for intrest.

That means it took you about 6-7 years to pay that loan off.

But your living with 3k a month for 6 years. That means you will be 33-34 years old when the debt is paid.

At 3k a month, assume you pay 1800 in rent and 300 for your car. That give you 900 dollars for food, cable, savings, clothing, leisure etc.

If your less willing to live like a hermit for those years it will take longer maybe 10 years to pay your bill at the age of 36-37 is when you debt is paid off.

The debt in Dentistry is huge.

That is why one shouldn't do dentistry for the money 😀 !

 

[setdoc7]

The debt is an investment is 100% true, and that person already has a grasp on what lies ahead. The numbers that I saw crunched were no where near reality, as the overhead for a dental office is not just a couple of boxes of composite and some etch/bond. The actual office costs something (rent), the equipment needs constant upkeep (maintenance), etc. As far as taxes go, check out what a self employed individual pays, it is far more than the with holding taxes you are used to from a "job". And you have not figured in some nice things like health insurance and disability ins which you must buy on your own. And of course, liability insurance not just for you, but for the office. Talk to your instructors or some private practitioners and ask them what the real expenses are. Then you will see why we all just don't "drill and fill". It sounds easy, but you can't have your own place doing 10 fillings a day.

 

[johntara04]

The debt is an investment is 100% true, and that person already has a grasp on what lies ahead. The numbers that I saw crunched were no where near reality, as the overhead for a dental office is not just a couple of boxes of composite and some etch/bond. The actual office costs something (rent), the equipment needs constant upkeep (maintenance), etc. As far as taxes go, check out what a self employed individual pays, it is far more than the with holding taxes you are used to from a "job". And you have not figured in some nice things like health insurance and disability ins which you must buy on your own. And of course, liability insurance not just for you, but for the office. Talk to your instructors or some private practitioners and ask them what the real expenses are. Then you will see why we all just don't "drill and fill". It sounds easy, but you can't have your own place doing 10 fillings a day.

It is not that hard to have a fill and drill office, and have overhead around 50%. That is not unreal. The numbers I gave in my example were 75% overhead. If you own an office and you have 75% overhead, then you are doing something seriously wrong. Most dentists will agree that your overhead should be around 60%. Overhead includes rent, salaries, maintenance, insurance, taxes and everything else. So, before you shoot down a post, you should look at what was actually written. Private Practitioners were spoken to, and these numbers are real. The more dentistry you do (implants, ortho, crowns, etc), the higher your overhead. The higher your overhead, the more you have to produce, to make the same amount of money. You can have your own practice just doing fillings all day. It is called medicaid. That is what is so great about dentistry. You can have a practice and do or not do whatever you want to. You are the boss and you decide what supplies to buy, what procedures to do, what to refer out.

 

[jaypea65]

It is not unheard of for a dentist to earn in the 300,000 range as a solo practitioner. The debt is nothing...quit worrying about it and follow your dreams......You only live once, so make it a good one.

 

[yfbb]

is it reasonable for a GP to do root canals all day?

 

[setdoc7]

You had me up until you mentioned the M word....medicaid, which does not pay the fees you have quoted, and does not always pay you on time, no matter how well you prepare your billing. Having a medicaid practice only pays if you are hiring dentists for little pay to do the work, you have many working at a furious pace, and the patients will show up. It is not as simple as you portray it, and you will be constantly scrutinized with governmental oversight. In NY a 2 surf amalgam is $84 and 1 quad of RP/SC is $58. These procedures are all governed by frequency limitations and may require extensive chart review and radiograph review in order to get paid.

 

[jmick101]

is it reasonable for a GP to do root canals all day?

Thats called an endodontist. The GP that I shadowed said he hates doing root canals because "they stink" literally meaning they smell really bad. He usually referred them out. But I guess endodonists make pretty good money.

 

[JavadiCavity]

Duh. But you can get a good idea of what to expect from doing this.

You will crunch hypothetical numbers for the rest of your life when you do your taxes, so you better get used to it. The better you get at it the less headaches you will have come tax time.

Before d-school, I spent my days crunching numbers as an accountant. And, my experience tells me that crunching hypothetical numbers provides hypothetical results that rarely come close to the way things will really be.