Practicing Dentists - How often do you have to take call?

[FutureDoc1014]

Hey guys I'm currently in college and was wondering how often dentists take call after hours. E.g. can you just unwind after work and have a drink and stuff like that or do you have to be alert and ready on call? I know there aren't many emergencies but of course, it's a possibility. I tried searching but didn't see anything so if there's already a thread please link it for me!

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[schmoob]

Never. I don’t have hospital privileges. If it is a true emergency they need an ER. Send them to the closest hospital with a GPR program. Or give them the option of coming in right before you open the next morning. If that’s inconvenient for them then it’s not a true emergency.

 

[Big Time Hoosier]

Send them to the closest hospital with a GPR program.

#puntforthewin

Big Hoss

 

[free99]

I take call for a week once every couple months. It's actually pretty busy but almost exclusively with silly things that are completely and utterly non-emergent. I just work for a kind of bougie peds practice that cares a lot about patient experience and that includes getting calls at 9pm on a Friday about an over retained baby tooth.

 

[Boat on the Chesapeake]

Always just had my number on the answering machine, and on take home instructions for extractions. Would get an after hours call maybe once every couple months. Only had to go in after hours maybe 2x a year on average.

Also it depends on your patient base and the level of customer service they expect.

 

[Saddleshoes]

1. When I was in private practice in a small town I was on call 24/7. My home number was know to everybody in town. I only got a call at home 3-4 times a year.
2. When I was the dentist for a large state prison, I was on call 2 days a week and was paid for it. I could handle most problems over the phone with the nurse taking care of things until I got there the next day or two. I only had to actually go in 1-2 times a year. (Once they sent the inmate to my office with 2 guards.)
3. In my gigs as an associate I have never been asked to cover call.
4. As hospital attending dentist I am on call about one week in 5. At the beginning of each year, when the residents are still green, I have to go in 4-5 times a week. Later in the year, they get so good that I can handle almost everything via the phone.
5. I have covered call for fellow dentists, for various reasons many times, over the years and can only recall a couple of times that I actually had to do something for one of their patients.

 

[gryffindor]

Every orthodontic patient in my practice is given my cellphone and told to text me if their child is having trouble eating or talking and is driving the parent crazy IF THE OFFICE IS NOT OPEN. Must emphasize that part because I pay staff 40 hours a week to sit around and fix their poking wires. It is extremely rare that I have to actually go to the office and fix something. Usually I can manage it over the phone or make them wait until the next business day. But I have heard of areas where helicopter moms prevail and abuse the privilege of a line straight to the doctor. So in those places, emergency calls are often sent to a phone that goes home with a paid rotating assistant to filter out the junk. The assistant only contacts the doctor if it is serious.

 

[TanMan]

Never. Hard to monetize, expensive to have staff on call for it. I have someone answer my emergency line and if it's a real emergency, I'll review the chart and go from there. If it's a new patient, I refer or tell them to wait the next business day. I don't get paid enough for I&Ds or extractions. Maybe if it's an RCTBUCrn, but hard to triage without seeing the patient. Combined with increased cost, possibility of low paying procedures, and increased liability, I would never do it after hours.

 

[allDAT]

Most of us don’t go in after hours unless it’s a rare exception. This may only happen a dozen times during our entire career, and some dentists just have a hard no that they don’t go in after hours. More and more dentists I know are falling into the hard no category today than before because we are just not setup to run like an urgent care.

To open after hours, you need to have a very large emergency fee plus your treatment fee just to open the door. The biggest cost is that if you bring in your full time RDA to help, you’ll be at risk for overtime hours either this week or next and you must figure out a way to be compensated to more than cover that + the value of your time + the procedure.