What exactly does this mean?

[captainlaziness]

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First of all, I'd like to let everyone know that I am extremely dedicated to becoming a dentist, then orthodontist. I'm not doing it for the money, I'm doing it because I have OCD and love fixing things that are crooked...kidding. But I do love fixing things, and I have an obsession with teeth for some reason.. I wouldn't care if I got paid $20K (actually, i kinda would), but I still would be pursuing orthodontics.

Anyways, I was reading on a forum on here about he salary of an Orthodontist, and I came across a comment talking about "just doing it for the money". I didn't quite understand it, considering i'm still in HS and learning all the abbreviations for everything. Here's the comment:

"if you are trying to make money, you become a GP, open up 7 practices, delegate your work by hiring associates/partners, take 50% of the profits, and bam. you just made yourself more money than most specialists without having to pay back debt from a residency. so when people say everyone wants to do ortho just for money-please don't assume that is always the case. maybe people like to do ortho because they are actually passionate about the cerebral aspect of the career? or enjoy working with patient populations that come to see you on an elective basis."

I'm guessing GP means General Practitioner, but when I searched their salaries, they only make around 90-140K, as compared to an orthodontist. But, how would this work? What I'm trying to say is how could anyone open up seven practices and take 50 percent of the profits, when they are only delegating them. Who the hell is going to be the GP in the office? I'm so damn confused if you can't tell by now..

 

[FutureDent020]

First of all, I'd like to let everyone know that I am extremely dedicated to becoming a dentist, then orthodontist. I'm not doing it for the money, I'm doing it because I have OCD and love fixing things that are crooked...kidding. But I do love fixing things, and I have an obsession with teeth for some reason.. I wouldn't care if I got paid $20K (actually, i kinda would), but I still would be pursuing orthodontics.

Anyways, I was reading on a forum on here about he salary of an Orthodontist, and I came across a comment talking about "just doing it for the money". I didn't quite understand it, considering i'm still in HS and learning all the abbreviations for everything. Here's the comment:

"if you are trying to make money, you become a GP, open up 7 practices, delegate your work by hiring associates/partners, take 50% of the profits, and bam. you just made yourself more money than most specialists without having to pay back debt from a residency. so when people say everyone wants to do ortho just for money-please don't assume that is always the case. maybe people like to do ortho because they are actually passionate about the cerebral aspect of the career? or enjoy working with patient populations that come to see you on an elective basis."

I'm guessing GP means General Practitioner, but when I searched their salaries, they only make around 90-140K, as compared to an orthodontist. But, how would this work? What I'm trying to say is how could anyone open up seven practices and take 50 percent of the profits, when they are only delegating them. Who the hell is going to be the GP in the office? I'm so damn confused if you can't tell by now..

Sounds like you are quite interested in salaries. But there is nothing wrong with that. Most of us are. I cannot explain the details because I am only a dental student, but yes, that statement definitely rings true. In Louisville, there are 30+ Mortenson dental offices. I don't even know if the guy still practices, but he makes / made A LOT of money. It's not as easy as the post has stated though. I am not sure how the guys in the past even went about, but they did something right. On another note, I haven't run into a GP that makes less than 120 K. I know they are out there though. Generally young dentists in private practices trying to build a client base. I will say I have met more GP's who bring in 200K+ a year (after overhead and taxes) then under 90K. Of course all the GP's I have spoken to, assisted, shadowed are all established, large client base, and 40+. So definitely a skewed sample population.

Summary: Specialists will make more money than GP's, but there are exceptions. With a good business sense and hard work, you will make a good living as a dentist.

 

[7 Iron]

Yes, a GP is a general practitioner. Their pay varies greatly depending on whether they own a practice or are just an associate, the types of procedures they perform, and their client base (how established the dentist is in the community, whether the patients pay with cash or via Medicaid, etc.) A GP who owns a practice will generally bring home much more money than an associate. That's because associates are generally paid either on a salary, or as a percentage of all the dentistry they do. This percentage is around ~30% or so, based on what I've read on this forum. Even though the owner dentist has to pay his associate, the owner still makes money off the associate if the associate produces lots of dentistry. That's why a GP who owns 7 practices will probably bring in more money than a specialist. However this type of GP is probably focused on the business and/or money aspect than the clinical aspects. This type of GP probably doesn't perform much dentistry of his own.

 

[fishyfishy]

This question has been addressed over and over again, with a million different views.

My view on this subject is that generally specialists will make more money than GPs (as the statistics report)... GPs simply don't get paid as much per procedure (partly due to high overhead + insurance) and therefore per unit of time as specialists do. BE AWARE that this is the internet, and people can throw whatever numbers they want at you: many lazy students who cannot specialize will tout the idea that they can be a GP and make more than a specialist, but more often than not, this is not the case.

The GPs that DO make more than specialists have created multiple offices so that they are pulling in a percent of profit from each one. The actual practitioners in the offices are generally younger dentists without a lot of experience/confidence and thus are willing to work under someone else.

Now, here is what is wrong with many people's understanding with GPs making this kind of money: that it is easy to start a dental chain business and pull in millions of dollars. It is NOT easy, it is largely unsuccessful for many people, and it takes a huge amount of business acumen, financial wisdom, as well as the guts to put yourself much further in debt trying to finance a behemoth project.

My dad is a relatively successful businessman who teaches for MBA programs on the side, and notes that many dentists who try to take on a project of managing a large dental chain without sufficient background declare bankruptcy around 7 out of 10 cases. This figure is projected to increase as our dental field faces problems with city center dentist saturation (the environment where dental chains thrive best). Given our current economic slump, I would say that the only way to make big money as a GP would be to somehow find a niche that has not yet been taken advantage of (again, hard to do).

My classmate's dad who is a GP puts it well: "If your goal is to make money, you should specialize."