how much would you say the owner is making if he is offering an associate job base pay min 180k-200k? seems like the owner has to be making more than the associate right?
More risk means more reward. An owner wouldn't take all the risk and give away all the rewards to an associate, so the owner definitely makes more than an associate.
Usually yes. Associates are not paid for hygiene collections, so if an associate is making 250k, at 30% collections, the associate has an adjusted production around 830k, there's another 150k in hygiene production on top of the associate's production. So if the office's overhead for an owner-operator is 65%, the associate making 250k would make around 350k if he or she owned the office. That 100k would initially go to services the debt to acquire the office so the initial compensation would likely be similar, but as the practice loan is paid down, you build equity in the practice and you are likely fine-tuning your business, reducing overhead, and growing your office. Then there are the tax advantages of ownership that you don't have access to as a W2.