I figured I'm spending all this time/money trying to get into dental school, then when I get in, I spend a bunch of money during school, and come out with a lot of debt, then I spend more money getting my own business started. So I'm already a slave to debt by the time I do my first filling out of dental school, all this depends on your hands, what type of protection is there for a dentist from either (God forbid) losing a finger in an accident, breaking your hand and recovering for a period of time, getting a disease like Multiple Sclerosis or Parkinsons, or tremors in your hands, what happens to you then? and all your debt?
2)or what if your in dental school and its academics for the first 2 years and the third year when you sit down to actually work on teeth, you realize you have shaky hands? what happens then?
Disability insurance. You can have it during school if you want, but you can only get a maximum at what the company decides... usually around $3k a month. If you are a specialist, it increases to around $5k a month.
So if you become disabled during dental school and it's after the waiting/investigation period, you can file for disability and get paid 3k a month for sitting on your butt.
Now if you have a history of having difficulty with a hand, wrist, elbow etc and it's been documented, you will have a tough time of having an insurance company cover those parts of your hand/arm and you will have an exception on your policy.
When you graduate, you can increase your payout in the case of disability dependent upon your income. So if you make $120k a year at your practice, theoretically, you can increase your monthly disability payment to $10k, albeit, it will come with a much higher monthly premium. Most policies have a maximum of $10k, but with some careful planning, you can have multiple policies and have a potential maximum between $15-25k
Most dental students cannot afford to have disability policies while in dental school. You are looking at around $150-400 a month for a basic disability policy without income history.
But yes, you still have to pay off your student loan, no matter what. In fact, if you die many times your family or 2nd party is often liable for servicing your debt.
If you really are concerned something like that can happen to you, paying for a policy during d-school may be the best money you ever spend.
