Western Dental offices

[Livineasi]

Anyone currently working for Western Dental? Curious what your average hours and take home compensation is? Thx

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[dentheartthrob]

I do. I'm a full time employee with the occasional 6 days a week schedule. Compensation is 500 dollars a day, but commission is based on your production, so take home compensation varies on how much you produce monthly. As of now, my projected gross for the end of the year will be around 240-255K depending on how busy the next three months will be.

 

[kobbix]

Do you feel working for a corporation, they have treatment expectations? Do they make you increase your production at the expense of the patient?

 

[caliprosth]

Just curious, do they have a treatment planning dentist and then a separate group of "worker-bee" dentists producing? I've heard this to be true. I've heard a lot of denti-cal patients...5 fillings for 40 bucks kinda thing going on. This is concerning and I have no idea how people produce such high numbers when the patient population is medi-cal and the company accepts some of the lowest bottom of the barrel insurance plans. How does the dentist make money at one of these joints?

 

[vetri]

I have no idea how people produce such high numbers when the patient population is medi-cal. Its easy to attrack the patients. After only people try to understand our treatment. for more details contact as srdentalhospital.com

 

[dentheartthrob]

Just curious, do they have a treatment planning dentist and then a separate group of "worker-bee" dentists producing? I've heard this to be true. I've heard a lot of denti-cal patients...5 fillings for 40 bucks kinda thing going on. This is concerning and I have no idea how people produce such high numbers when the patient population is medi-cal and the company accepts some of the lowest bottom of the barrel insurance plans. How does the dentist make money at one of these joints?

1) That's true, you have a managing dentist who does the treatment planning, and most of the time you have associates doing the treatment. But if varies from clinic to clinic, the associate would sometime as well do diagnosis.

2) Western Dental is the no. 1 provider for Dentical, that being said not all affiliated clinics in a particular region are slammed with just seeing denticals, GMC and HMOs ; most of them are distributed through out a region but not evenly. So basically new grads and less "aggressive" dentists would be assigned to clinics that primarily caters to Dentical, HMO's and GMC since, more than likely patients there aren't going to be purchasing any 7K plans anytime soon.

3) One of the reason why people would good insurances would go to WesternDental is because of their flexible payment plan options also the fee schedules from them are lower comparatively else where. And just because some one has a state funded or HMO plan doesn't mean they won't open contract for a treatment that isn't covered.

4) Salary is basically base pay+ commission. Commission is based on a number of factors, though a certain doctor would primarily see dentical doesn't necessarily mean his production is lower. There is a converting factor used that would equalize production compared to say credit, cash or indemnity insurances; also their is a tier percentage used on how you'll be commission at the end of the month. Lets say an associate's production for the month is 100K, worked for 24 days, the ADP (adjusted daily production) would be 4,166. (100k/24). The ADP is what the tier percentage would be based from. So lets say 4,166 falls in the 18 % range. So that means .18*100K would equal 18K. That number would then be subtracted from your base pay to get your commsion. Ex. daily rate of 500 x 24=12, 000. So the commission for this particular doctor would be 6K for that month from 18K-12K=6K, with a gross of 18K at the end of the month.

 

[dentheartthrob]

Do you feel working for a corporation, they have treatment expectations? Do they make you increase your production at the expense of the patient?

1) Kind of a hard question to answer, but here's an example. When I first started for this company two years ago, I was fresh out of school and felt kind of uneasy with pushing some of the treatment options such as diagnosing bone graft (which isn't a covered benefit) after a surgical extraction. Because back in school, I never had to place any bone grafts in any patients. I felt kind of guilty at first, but weighing down the pros and cons, would it be more beneficial having it or does it really make a difference? I mean not placing it would fine in itself but it wouldn't be "ideal" . It's just a really matter of rationalizing treatment options.

 

[caliprosth]

I am of the understanding that if your production must be higher than your base pay for the majority of days in the pay period in order to reap the benefits. In other words, say you're paid 650 a day. You have a few days sprinkled in the 2 week pay period with high production, but in the end, because of the "medi-cal" days, your production dips. So you don't get paid for production on those days and basically your paycheck is straight base pay. Is this how it works there at Western?

You can have some awesome days but need to consistently be hitting a level of production greater than your base pay to get paid for your efforts. This was deceiving to me after I signed with a corporate chain a while back. Most other docs agreed.

 

[caliprosth]

To clarify, you don't get paid your percentage of production unless you beat your 2 week base pay salary. So good days (above base pay) don't translate into higher pay unless they're either consistent or its an exceptionally high producing day.

 

[dentheartthrob]

Correct. Sorry I didn't clarify that. Most of the times those who do recive commission are those who work at clinics with consistent new patient flow monthly as well as good case treatment acceptance. And it's based on an entire month not just a pay period. So commission is given on the second pay period of each month

 

[dentheartthrob]

To clarify, you don't get paid your percentage of production unless you beat your 2 week base pay salary. So good days (above base pay) don't translate into higher pay unless they're either consistent or its an exceptionally high producing day.

Correct. Sorry I didn't clarify that. Most of the times those who do recieve commission are those who work at clinics with consistent new patient flow monthly as well as good case treatment acceptance. And it's based on an entire month not just a pay period. So commission is given on the second pay period of each month

 

[dentheartthrob]

because of the "medi-cal" days, your production dips. So you don't get paid for production on those days and basically your paycheck is straight base pay. Is this how it works there at Western?.

There is a conversion factor used to offset insurance plans with low reimbursement rates that some how equalizes the ADP. Doing multiple fillings can be tidious and time consuming on one patient and when there's so many other patients waiting for treatment, doing one or two fillings per patient doesn't really amount to very much. It comes with the environment I guess

 

[Brig7]

Informative thread you guys, thank you.
What percentage of associates would you say produce enough to earn commission? Were you able to a couple years ago, when you were fresh out of school? Does your base pay increase with time, for example a raise after the first year? Or do you increase your own pay with increased production? Or both?
Where is CA are you? I'm a CA native (Sacramento), current D1 at PITT.

 

[dentheartthrob]

Informative thread you guys, thank you.
What percentage of associates would you say produce enough to earn commission? Were you able to a couple years ago, when you were fresh out of school? Does your base pay increase with time, for example a raise after the first year? Or do you increase your own pay with increased production? Or both?
Where is CA are you? I'm a CA native (Sacramento), current D1 at PITT.

Looks like we're in the same area. I work at Sacramento but live in Roseville. It really depends; usually those who's been with the company for about 6-10 months start having commission since they aren't send around to different sites as much. I didn't really start having commission until almost a year in since this region was going through a major restructioning phase. Anywho, some who do get a raise have been with the company for a long time. So their base salary some where around 700 a day but making commission for them is totally different. You really don't want to stay in corporate dentistry for to long even if the pay is good.

 

[Brig7]

Small world! I lived in Roseville for a while after I got married! I'm actually from Newcastle and my wife is from Auburn.
How's practice in CA? I guess you probably don't know much different. The consensus I'm getting is that yes, it is saturated, but a good dentist who works hard can still have a lot of success. Would you agree?
Is there a reason you're working in Sac? I know there are one or two Western Dental offices in Roseville. Is it patient density/population? Or does Western Dental not exactly let you decide where you work?

 

[dentheartthrob]

I'd love to have been placed closer to home but those areas already have regular doctors who are already established there. California is saturated but on the flip side a lot of new communities are being developed here in Roseville. Establishing a clinic soon prior the projected finish date of a community would be so ideal. My friend who opened shop last year has his clinic open full time compared to when he first started. He was working half his time at western the other half at his clinic.

 

[Brig7]

That's cool, hopefully the growth will continue for a few more years! After reading your post and a few others, I'm thinking of working for a corporation for a few years before going off on my own. Did you do a GPR or AEGD?
What advice would you give someone in my shoes? D1 and hoping to return to CA as a general dentist.

 

[dentheartthrob]

That's cool, hopefully the growth will continue for a few more years! After reading your post and a few others, I'm thinking of working for a corporation for a few years before going off on my own. Did you do a GPR or AEGD?
What advice would you give someone in my shoes? D1 and hoping to return to CA as a general dentist.

When I'd graduated I was already in my thirties so I just wanted get to work to make up for lost time. If you decide to do GPR find one that lets you place tons of implants, everything else can become second nature through being proficient at work. Personally, 7-14k investment on implant courses should be enough to make a GP capable on doing some implant cases in my opinion. I have colleagues that did two years of GPR and refuse to do RCTs even on single canals. That's basically one of the bread and butter in Dentistry. So essentially I guess it all comes down how aggressive and proficient you are regardless of doing GPR or a few years with corporate dentistry.