Potential For General Practice Dentist

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corymartin2012

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I was curious if any of ya'll (pardon my texas wording) have actually thought of the potential of money from being a dentist with lots or very specific continued education courses. I was just thinking about it after going to my dentist this week for wisdom teeth extraction (still sore). And realized he more or less made 1300 off of my family in less than an hour!

I mean, if a general dentist took courses in:
IV Sedation/Oral Sedation Methods
3rd Molar Extractions
Pediatric Dentistry
Implant Dentistry
Oral Surgery Basics (Cysts, Molars, Lesions)
Dentures
Sports Dentistry (Just read about this one, found it cool)
Orthodontics Basics

Just to name a few I saw names of while looking over the intenet. It would seem like a practice could handle most cases of anything except for things that the dentist found hard or better fitted for a specialist. I see the potential being very high in a rural area were dentist are few and specialist are fewer! What all do you think? I think high 200 low 300 is surely possible.

Btw, I do not only care about the money. I think the chance to use your hands and relieve pain (wisdom teeth again, ouch) is something very awesome with a somewhat normal practices hours (Mon-Thur 8-5, Friday 8-1) I mean it just seems like a great profession :) give me your ideas?

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I was curious if any of ya'll (pardon my texas wording) have actually thought of the potential of money from being a dentist with lots or very specific continued education courses. I was just thinking about it after going to my dentist this week for wisdom teeth extraction (still sore). And realized he more or less made 1300 off of my family in less than an hour!

I mean, if a general dentist took courses in:
IV Sedation/Oral Sedation Methods
3rd Molar Extractions
Pediatric Dentistry
Implant Dentistry
Oral Surgery Basics (Cysts, Molars, Lesions)
Dentures
Sports Dentistry (Just read about this one, found it cool)
Orthodontics Basics

Just to name a few I saw names of while looking over the intenet. It would seem like a practice could handle most cases of anything except for things that the dentist found hard or better fitted for a specialist. I see the potential being very high in a rural area were dentist are few and specialist are fewer! What all do you think? I think high 200 low 300 is surely possible.

Btw, I do not only care about the money. I think the chance to use your hands and relieve pain (wisdom teeth again, ouch) is something very awesome with a somewhat normal practices hours (Mon-Thur 8-5, Friday 8-1) I mean it just seems like a great profession :) give me your ideas?
There are many dentists who expand their practice to include some of the procedures you have listed above. The risk you would run in attempting to do all of them is that you might get spread too thin and not fully develop your skills in some areas. Another thing to consider is that you would need to carry more malpractice insurance for certain procedures such as IV sedation. Some states don't allow general dentists to perform IV sedation because of the increased risk.

Dentists who wish to expand their practice often choose to either move towards cosmetic or surgical. Cosmetic would include courses and certifications from the AACD and ortho. Surgical would include implants, bone grafts, and 3rds. Some dentists do 3rds right out of school because you are taught this in dental school but they are a pain in the a** and you really should offer sedation.

As for the salary range? It all depends on how well you run your practice. You can make $200K-300K without doing any of the expanded functions you listed above if you control your overhead and have enough patients.
 
I was curious if any of ya'll (pardon my texas wording) have actually thought of the potential of money from being a dentist with lots or very specific continued education courses. I was just thinking about it after going to my dentist this week for wisdom teeth extraction (still sore). And realized he more or less made 1300 off of my family in less than an hour!

I mean, if a general dentist took courses in:
IV Sedation/Oral Sedation Methods
3rd Molar Extractions
Pediatric Dentistry
Implant Dentistry
Oral Surgery Basics (Cysts, Molars, Lesions)
Dentures
Sports Dentistry (Just read about this one, found it cool)
Orthodontics Basics

Just to name a few I saw names of while looking over the intenet. It would seem like a practice could handle most cases of anything except for things that the dentist found hard or better fitted for a specialist. I see the potential being very high in a rural area were dentist are few and specialist are fewer! What all do you think? I think high 200 low 300 is surely possible.

Btw, I do not only care about the money. I think the chance to use your hands and relieve pain (wisdom teeth again, ouch) is something very awesome with a somewhat normal practices hours (Mon-Thur 8-5, Friday 8-1) I mean it just seems like a great profession :) give me your ideas?

General dentists can pretty much do everything specialists do, except general anesthesia, and I have seen them doing it. Pay scale for specialists for the same procedure would be higher than general dentists though because specialists have that much more education and experience in that particular area.
 
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One of the dentists I work for, does a lot of his own surgery. He does ortho, apico, bone graft, simple perio surgery and tissue grafts (synthetic). He extracts 3rd molars if they are erupted and not impacted. He also does most if not all root canals. He has been practicing over 30 years.....he is very busy and prefers not to "farm" stuff out, he feels as though he loses money when he does that.

That said, if it was my mouth, I would go to a specialist most of the time, unless it's just an extraction.
 
Jack of all trades, but master of none!

I agree with MsMouth, I would go to a specialist for all specialist procedures that need to be done. I'd rather have a guy who does these things day in and day out rather than some guy who does them once in awhile.

In my opinion, you really don't have a large enough patient pool for you to be able to maintain or hone these new skills that you've learned. If you've shadowed an Endo, you'll see many many redos.

I know we all get caught up in the moment where our ego inflates larger than our head and we end up compromising the patient's health for $...
 
I was curious if any of ya'll (pardon my texas wording) have actually thought of the potential of money from being a dentist with lots or very specific continued education courses. I was just thinking about it after going to my dentist this week for wisdom teeth extraction (still sore). And realized he more or less made 1300 off of my family in less than an hour!

I mean, if a general dentist took courses in:
IV Sedation/Oral Sedation Methods
3rd Molar Extractions
Pediatric Dentistry
Implant Dentistry
Oral Surgery Basics (Cysts, Molars, Lesions)
Dentures
Sports Dentistry (Just read about this one, found it cool)
Orthodontics Basics

Just to name a few I saw names of while looking over the intenet. It would seem like a practice could handle most cases of anything except for things that the dentist found hard or better fitted for a specialist. I see the potential being very high in a rural area were dentist are few and specialist are fewer! What all do you think? I think high 200 low 300 is surely possible.

Btw, I do not only care about the money. I think the chance to use your hands and relieve pain (wisdom teeth again, ouch) is something very awesome with a somewhat normal practices hours (Mon-Thur 8-5, Friday 8-1) I mean it just seems like a great profession :) give me your ideas?

AS RDH mentioned, you don't need special training to hit the 200-300k margins, however, if money is your #1 priority, some courses in ortho (invisaline) and implants should help you reach 300-400k incomes (maybe even more).

Ofc, this pisses off the specialists lol, but thats the new trend with GPs, I swear, I feel like every GP these days are advertising implants and ortho works.

And some GPs are making some SERIOUS cash flow with those...., a friend of my sister right now has a GP office that generates 160k a month (gross) ~ substantial overhead too, but still, 160k is sick, he is at least taking 30-40k a month....
 
Are yall talking about doing something like a one year residency after dental school for the extra courses or what?
 
Are yall talking about doing something like a one year residency after dental school for the extra courses or what?

There are seminars you attend (they aren't free) and they train you to do certain procedures.

Like for example, there are a few for ortho, they usually go as long as 12-24 months long. they aren't very expensive, but they give you a certificate at the end (NO YOU ARE NOT A SPECIALIST ~ you are just trained to handle basic ortho cases)

There are other seminars for implants, I've heard some go like 3-6 months, again, once you graduate, you are "certified" to do implants.

Actually a general dentist I shadowed a while back was doing his seminar in implants.
 
AS RDH mentioned, you don't need special training to hit the 200-300k margins, however, if money is your #1 priority, some courses in ortho (invisaline) and implants should help you reach 300-400k incomes (maybe even more).

Ofc, this pisses off the specialists lol, but thats the new trend with GPs, I swear, I feel like every GP these days are advertising implants and ortho works.

And some GPs are making some SERIOUS cash flow with those...., a friend of my sister right now has a GP office that generates 160k a month (gross) ~ substantial overhead too, but still, 160k is sick, he is at least taking 30-40k a month....

The office I currently work in, the goal is 160K every month. We come in under and over of course. Our overhead is high, but I don't know the numbers in that regard.
Not long ago....I temped in an office who's goal was $230K every month......They had it written in the break-room with everyone's individual production on a daily basis.
There's another practice down the road that must gross $2mill a year (just a ballpark guess). The office is huge and state of the art..... The owner has double and triple hygiene going daily, an orthodontist, and 2 gen'l dentists working for him. He also does sedation dentistry himself. He also owns or leases another practice that is on the basement level with another dentist working it.
 
The office I currently work in, the goal is 160K every month. We come in under and over of course. Our overhead is high, but I don't know the numbers in that regard.
Not long ago....I temped in an office who's goal was $230K every month......They had it written in the break-room with everyone's individual production on a daily basis.
There's another practice down the road that must gross $2mill a year (just a ballpark guess). The office is huge and state of the art..... The owner has double and triple hygiene going daily, an orthodontist, and 2 gen'l dentists working for him. He also does sedation dentistry himself. He also owns or leases another practice that is on the basement level with another dentist working it.

230k a month? 2 mill a year? wowowow
EVEN if you have a 70% overhead, thats 5-600k take-home (again ~ WOW)

I am sure these owners aren't young, they've probably been doing this for 20+ years....

Man... I can't even imagine what 500k would feel like, my goal in life is to hit 250k/year take-home (big IF)
 
Dude, go for the 500k. I know you can do it!!!!

Knowing is half the battle; therefore, knowing will get you that extra 250k you cannot imagine.

230k a month? 2 mill a year? wowowow
EVEN if you have a 70% overhead, thats 5-600k take-home (again ~ WOW)

I am sure these owners aren't young, they've probably been doing this for 20+ years....

Man... I can't even imagine what 500k would feel like, my goal in life is to hit 250k/year take-home (big IF)
 
Yes all of these dentists have been practicing 20 + years.
My boss took over a successful practice 30 years ago and has a big following. People travel from great distances to see him. He has a really great personality and tries to make each person feel like he cares about them.....he's also a talker. People just like him....he can sell snow to an eskimo basically.

He owns 2 vacation homes, his home, another home he rents and he owns our building that also has a separate office space that he rents. He obviously made some sound decisions that made him very wealthy.

230k a month? 2 mill a year? wowowow
EVEN if you have a 70% overhead, thats 5-600k take-home (again ~ WOW)

I am sure these owners aren't young, they've probably been doing this for 20+ years....

Man... I can't even imagine what 500k would feel like, my goal in life is to hit 250k/year take-home (big IF)
 
I know this is completely off topic (and I apologise, haha) but it kind of pains me to see the word "eskimo" used so much. It's actually considered a derogatory term by the Inuit. Just a word to the wise. :)

Back to the discussion about the seemingly substantial sums of money we'll be making in the future. :oops:
 
I know this is completely off topic (and I apologise, haha) but it kind of pains me to see the word "eskimo" used so much. It's actually considered a derogatory term by the Inuit. Just a word to the wise. :)

Back to the discussion about the seemingly substantial sums of money we'll be making in the future. :oops:

I never even considered the Inuit people! I am usually careful with what I say but I guess it's one of those sayings that is overused and not really thought through. We'll have to think of another way of saying it.......maybe, he can sell sunshine to Floridians......
 
There are other seminars for implants, I've heard some go like 3-6 months, again, once you graduate, you are "certified" to do implants.

Actually a general dentist I shadowed a while back was doing his seminar in implants.


A GP I worked with a while back took one of these 1-2wknds a month, ~6 month long implant course. I remember him saying he placed a total of ~6 implants in pig jaws. He never once placed an implant in a patient. Now he's "certified" to place implants in patients. Yikes! :eek:

Now compare that to an OMS chief who will place 150-300 implants when he/she graduates.

I doubt I'll ever get to a high enough ranking to earn the privilege of getting into OMS/Perio. It just doesn't make any sense to me that the most qualified persons (OMS/Perio) must spend years in residency to place implants, and the lowest ranked graduate of a class can also place implants if they spend enough money (uber expensive implant CE courses). Then this CE trained GP gets to undercut the fees of qualified specialists.

I'm sure I'll change my tune once I become an implant placing GP haha.
 
I never even considered the Inuit people! I am usually careful with what I say but I guess it's one of those sayings that is overused and not really thought through. We'll have to think of another way of saying it.......maybe, he can sell sunshine to Floridians......

It's not something that crosses the minds of Americans naturally since there are little to no Inuit in the States (if there are any, they're those who probably first moved to a large Canadian city then moved south). There are in Canada, though, and you never hear ANYONE of authority or public stature say the word 'eskimo', and as a result it just falls out of the national lexicon. You can think of it as refraining from saying "Indians" to refer to Native Americans/Canadians. Just a matter of conscientiousness, but considering we're all hoping to be health professionals in the future, I think it's best to be aware of these things early. :oops:
 
A GP I worked with a while back took one of these 1-2wknds a month, ~6 month long implant course. I remember him saying he placed a total of ~6 implants in pig jaws. He never once placed an implant in a patient. Now he's "certified" to place implants in patients. Yikes! :eek:

Now compare that to an OMS chief who will place 150-300 implants when he/she graduates.

I doubt I'll ever get to a high enough ranking to earn the privilege of getting into OMS/Perio. It just doesn't make any sense to me that the most qualified persons (OMS/Perio) must spend years in residency to place implants, and the lowest ranked graduate of a class can also place implants if they spend enough money (uber expensive implant CE courses). Then this CE trained GP gets to undercut the fees of qualified specialists.

I'm sure I'll change my tune once I become an implant placing GP haha.

yep.... today I don't even consider ever learning implants (assuming I go GP), but...then in the near future I'll realize that.... "everyone's doing it" and the only way to compete with the local GPs is by offering the treatment myself.

The course you described above doesn't sound too promising actually, there are some courses around where they WILL pair you up with an OS who will do implant cases with you. IMO, this is the way to go, but Im sure you realize, these are the more costly ones (still a helva-lot cheaper than 1 term in DS)
 
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