All location and person and setup dependent.
I understand that's the case with any dental office. What I want to know is if a general dentist has the potential to make more than a specialist working similar hours in a similar environment. General dentists can expand there practice and do a lot more hygiene, do some CE and add other services, while specialists are more limited in scope, but generally start earning more than a GD. Who has the highest earnings ceiling?
What’s a similar environment? As others have said, way too many variables to answer this. But most specialist associates are going to make more than GP associates. Most specialist owners who have high volume clientele are going to make more than GP’s with high volume clientele. But GP’s that have managed to build a high volume of implant based restorations and other fixed work could easily make more than specialists.
Yup, the success of a specialist depends on how well he communicates with the general dentists and the quality of his work. The job of the specialists is to the GPs’ lives easier.
Don't get me wrong...specialist in general make more than GPs as they deserve. GPs have more variables. I feel sorry for our Orthodontist who owes $800k. His wife has not passed her Optometry Board and they are expecting their first child. If it was me, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night wondering how I'm going to provide especially during a possible recession when pts might not have the means. As long as the Specialists can control their debt, avoid legal problems and divorce if possible, they can live the lifestyle of the top 2 or 1%.
Good advice for all dentists.
Have a nice time in Miami and eat some good Cuban and Jamaican food. I think he is doing everything right...he works for Corp Mon-Thurs and at his own clinic Fri and Sat while his wife manages. I wouldn't live in the most expensive apt in his suburb. I think he has it way harder than you. He's 35-36 and makes good income but he has no house and I don't know how he funds his retirement portfolio other than Corp 401k. Not sure if his folks are helping him as Asian cultures usually do (not mine though).
It’s very obvious to me that he doesn’t get any help from his family. That’s why he has to work crazily hard like this. He works hard. He deserves to live in a nice apt. It’s still much cheaper than owning a house. With $800k debt and the current mortgage interest rate above 6%, I wouldn’t buy a house at this time either. I would focus on paying down the student loans first. He’s only 35-36. When I was at his age, I owed more than $2 millions (home loan and investment property loans). And I was able to pay all of them off when I was 49. I think he’ll reach this goal when he is at my age.
Wow Dr. charlestweed, you're amazing! I know you always recommend working 6 days a week to reach your goals. I understand being a GP is different than ortho but I get exhausted after working one 8 hr day! The most I ever worked in a week was five, 10 hr days and was on-call the same week before my overseas trip. It could be any combination of factors but I was miserable throwing up with the chills during that trip.
Yeah, it’s tough working 6 days/wk as a GP. I had done this for a year: working 5 days/wk, 10+ hours a day at a GPR program and moonlighting on Saturdays. I was 26 yo. It’s much easier to do this when you are still young and healthy ….when you have no kid (or have kids who are still very little). I’ve never suggested working 6 days/wk for the entire career. You may only need to do this the first 6-7 years… until you bring the debt amount down to a manageable level….until you save enough for a down payment on our first house…or until your office, that you set up from scratch, gets enough patients to fill the appt book.
You will be impressed with these 2 dudes especially this periodontist. I met him in '07 while I was working every other Sat doing full time endo. He had just graduated DS and was in his 1st yr perio residency. He moonlighted every Sat at the Corp doing implants, and perio. He does residency M-F 8 to 5 and afterwards moonlighted at Emergency Dentistry from 6 pm to 11 pm. He does Sun where and when he can. Of course he had no family at that time. The other guy is an Endodontist. He has 2 practices and works 2 days at the Corp. He too doesn't have a family. The GPs I've encountered that did 6 days are the ones starting their practices and working at the Corps. Doing GP at the Corp is very exhausting as I mentioned before and I don't know anyone doing 6 days for them.
My wife also moonlighted at a private GP office on Saturdays during her perio residency. That’s where she met the co-associate dentist, who later bought a busy HMO practice and became her boss. In addition to perio, this GP boss also hires in-house endo, OS, pedo, and ortho to work for him. While in residency, my wife also volunteered to work at the school’s emergency department a few nights a month. That’s where she learned how to extract 3rd molars fast. It’s easier to do all these when you are young, single, and have no kids. I didn’t marry my wife until we finished our residencies.
what state? rural?
how old are you?
40% overhead is really low for a general practice. What's the secret?
I think that if you take the time to see where one can cut costs and put a little elbow grease into an office then you can be at 40% I know a handful of people who have this and they keep track of everything and do not rely on a practice manager to manage this. The person who is going to take the best interest in your practice or whatever you own is you.
I’m not in a high end city with crazy costs. My rent is 19k a year. My highest paid staff is 40/hr. My fixed costs are super low. I use good labs for less remakes and honestly im not a stickler about supply costs.
Lol, sorry if you don’t like it. People buy things from people they like. If you’re a dork talking to them about their VDO they’re not buying anything from you because you’ve confused them.
Yeah that’s great. We only work 3-4 days a week.
I understand what you're saying. When I was training in the hospital for my current job, after the physicians had done their rounds in the patients' rooms, there was one thing that all the patients seemed to make remarks about afterwards. They never were in awe of the physicians' understanding of medical science or the human body, or expressed remorse of their diagnosis. Anything like that. All of the comments seemed to center on the doctors' bedside manners. This is not to say that doctors don't have any, just remarking on what I remember. No matter the patient's age, medical IQ, social class, any of that stuff. "Man, that ortho guy was such a jerk, he just walked in here, basically told me there's a chance I might be disabled for a long time because of my injury, then just walked right out. Cool story, bro, thanks..." things like that.
Reminds me of one of those random memories that've stuck with me. During an os externship over the summer, we were wiping up and head wrapping post-orthog when a bit of blood accidentally got on the wrap. The chief made a comment while laughing that, while you can be a fantastic surgeon and reconstruct their face but which leaves them with a lot of pain post-op, the number one thing some patients will later complain about is if their skin isn't perfectly blood/iodine-free and pretty and the head wrapping isn't all white and spot free.
Idgaf. This is a fact of sells
Breathe hardo
Aren’t we all….nerds? Most people don’t go to schools for 8+ years like us. Some of us spent additional 2-6 years to specialize afterward. While in college, we had had to give up on social life and study hard to earn good grades and DAT scores so we could get into good (and cheap) dental school. Some of us had to do research and other extracurricular activities to increase our chance of getting into dental school. Another reason why we had to give up on social life was we were all broke (had to live on the borrowed money)……without money, can’t afford to have fun. For other college kids, who pursued a 4 year degree, they didn’t have to give up on their social life because having a low GPA didn’t matter much.
