It's very geographically diverse, big metropolitan areas with higher costsof living and higher fees = more per day. A GP in a big city may get $6-700 per day depending on volume. In a small rural area, you can expect atleast the 3-400 a day, and if a practice can't pay you atleast that per day either a) they don't have the patient volume to support you, or b) the senior dentist is making a ton of $$ off you. A better rule of thumb is that you should be getting somewhere around 35% of your production as your pay(if you have to pay things like lab fees, etc you should be getting a higher percentage).
Big thing to watch out for as your looking for a practice, and a way that a senior dentist will end up making more $$ off you than it appears. If your going to join a practice, they senior dentist should show you the books with the production and overhead figures(if he/she won't you don't want anything to do with that practice because you're NOT being paid what you're worth). The senior dentist will show you what the overhead percentage figure is (lets say 60% for an average number). Now if the senior dentist(s) don't have to add any additional operatories for you, the amount of overhead you add to the practice will be LESS than the total overhead. Think of it this way, if the practice produces $1,000,000 a year and the overhead is 60%(600,000) and if they don't have to build an additions to the office, then your over head may be the cost of an assistant, say $25,000 plus materials for you say another $25,000, lab fees say another $15,000 some advertising for you say $2,000 and maybe some new instruments for you say $10,000. So the cost to you would be say $75,000 in additional fees, then if you produce $250,000 (a realistic number if not a bit low), the senior docs off you would be getting the $250,000 - $75,000 = $175,000. Then if they pay you say $100,000, they get roughly that $75,000 in their pockets(true they have to pay some taxes on you, and you'll add to the electric bill a bit, but worst case scenario is they'd still clear $50,000 off of you, all the while saying that the overhead for you is the same 60% as for them. Be carefull of associateships where the senior docs tell you that they're "not making any money off you"
As for specialty programs, for an ortho associate, again location is everything. I am running this by my orthodontist wife as I type and off the top of her head based upon what her ortho friends have told her and from personal experience anywhere for $500 to $1000 a day is reasonable to expect as a starting per diem.
As for an endodontist, a high of $1200 is very believable. Think of it this way, if the endodontist does 4 molars in 1 day at $1000 a tooth (both very believable numbers) thats $4000 in production and the $1200 is only 30% production. BTW, endo overhead tends to be lower than a GP's overhead due to a much smaller quantity of instruments/materials to function on a daily basis.
Now that I've shed some light to you folks on some of the "tricks of the trade" about hiring an associate, I could never expect/be able to make a dime off any of you if you came to join into my practice in a few years when we'll likely need a 3rd dentist 😀
