breaks their hand? Not trying to jinx anybody, just curious about the actual ramifications of this potential reality 
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What if a dentist...
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breaks their hand? Not trying to jinx anybody, just curious about the actual ramifications of this potential reality
This is why dentists need to carry disability insurance so hopefully you can get some benefit to get you through an injury period. Depending on the disability, you can still practice dentistry in a non-clinical setting such as teaching or administration.
Personally I don't go out there and actively participate in activities where my chances of injury could be higher. No thank you to skiing, rollerblading, parasailing, etc. I stay within my comfort zone. Call me boring but no one is going to pay me to sit around and heal from broken bones so I'm not going to put myself out there to break them in the first place. Sure I have disability insurance, but it doesn't kick in until 90 days after the injury and it will pay me a fraction of what I could be making out there as a fully functional dentist.
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what about bowling or working out? my dexterity is usually bad the day after bowling and my muscles usually pretty stiff/tender after working out
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Things happen.....true story:
One of our residents, less than six months into PGY 1 was riding his bike and fell off. Broke his right arm (working arm) in multiple places. Seen at two major med centers, both were not sure they could fix it. I saw him 48 hours post trauma and suggested contacting "the best". Called the Yankees front office and asked for their orthopedic referral. Got him on the phone. He was leaving on vacation in 2 days. Operated our resident before leaving. He has lots of interesting and intricate hardware in his arm. He is a practicing dentist currently. A great result. And lucky. Things happen. Disability insurance is a must.
One of our residents, less than six months into PGY 1 was riding his bike and fell off. Broke his right arm (working arm) in multiple places. Seen at two major med centers, both were not sure they could fix it. I saw him 48 hours post trauma and suggested contacting "the best". Called the Yankees front office and asked for their orthopedic referral. Got him on the phone. He was leaving on vacation in 2 days. Operated our resident before leaving. He has lots of interesting and intricate hardware in his arm. He is a practicing dentist currently. A great result. And lucky. Things happen. Disability insurance is a must.
Disability insurance is a must, it is also very expensive, and prohibitively so unless you get a policy that only kicks in after a longer time of disability. My policy only applies if I am unable to work for more than 90 days. And it ain't cheap either🙁.
I rode motocross as a kid, and owned a rode several sportbikes through undergrad. I sold my last motorcycle the month I started Dental school. One of my old riding buddies crashed and broke his arm in several places, he lost alot of the use of that arm, fortunately he was an engineer, not a dentist.
This doesn't mean you can't have fun, I still ski and snowboard, and bike, but you always have to think about what might happen to your family if you get injured and cannot provide. I sold my old 2 seat sports car this spring, and bought a big heavy 4 door sedan, because I kept thinking about getting creamed by somebody in a big SUV who was texting on their cell phone (I guess I'm getting older and wiser).😉
I had shoulder surgery last month to repair a torn labrum and supraspinatus tendon. Had a problem with chronic dislocations since injuring it 2 decades ago in the Army. Scheduled around the holidays when my office was closed, but still missed a couple of weeks of work, and now I'm back but working a light schedule as I heal. The MRI, surgery, PT and everything cost me only about $1000 in copays for my HMO insurance, but I figure the whole deal will be costing me over $50k in lost income this year. Oh well, as long as it gets better it will be worth it. emailed several other dentists I found on Dentaltown who had shoulder surgery, and the consensus is we ALL went back to work very soon, because we could not afford to miss that much time away from our practices. One guy said his ortho sx told him he wouldn't work for 3 months; he was back at work in under a month, "did it hurt?" he says, "hell yes it hurt but it would have hurt more to not put food on the table".
One of our instructors in dental school was an oral pathologist. He used to tell us, "always take care of your eyes and your hands, because without them, you will no longer be a dentist". He only had one eye. He lost the other one cutting off an old gold onlay and he got a chunk of gold thrown into his eye by his high speed, destroying his eye (this was before safety glasses, latex gloves, and masks). One eye means no depth perception. No depth perception means forget about practicing dentistry. He found a niche in Oral Path, as he can still read a microscope slide and perform examinations, although I don't think he did much in the way of biopsies.
I rode motocross as a kid, and owned a rode several sportbikes through undergrad. I sold my last motorcycle the month I started Dental school. One of my old riding buddies crashed and broke his arm in several places, he lost alot of the use of that arm, fortunately he was an engineer, not a dentist.
This doesn't mean you can't have fun, I still ski and snowboard, and bike, but you always have to think about what might happen to your family if you get injured and cannot provide. I sold my old 2 seat sports car this spring, and bought a big heavy 4 door sedan, because I kept thinking about getting creamed by somebody in a big SUV who was texting on their cell phone (I guess I'm getting older and wiser).😉
I had shoulder surgery last month to repair a torn labrum and supraspinatus tendon. Had a problem with chronic dislocations since injuring it 2 decades ago in the Army. Scheduled around the holidays when my office was closed, but still missed a couple of weeks of work, and now I'm back but working a light schedule as I heal. The MRI, surgery, PT and everything cost me only about $1000 in copays for my HMO insurance, but I figure the whole deal will be costing me over $50k in lost income this year. Oh well, as long as it gets better it will be worth it. emailed several other dentists I found on Dentaltown who had shoulder surgery, and the consensus is we ALL went back to work very soon, because we could not afford to miss that much time away from our practices. One guy said his ortho sx told him he wouldn't work for 3 months; he was back at work in under a month, "did it hurt?" he says, "hell yes it hurt but it would have hurt more to not put food on the table".
One of our instructors in dental school was an oral pathologist. He used to tell us, "always take care of your eyes and your hands, because without them, you will no longer be a dentist". He only had one eye. He lost the other one cutting off an old gold onlay and he got a chunk of gold thrown into his eye by his high speed, destroying his eye (this was before safety glasses, latex gloves, and masks). One eye means no depth perception. No depth perception means forget about practicing dentistry. He found a niche in Oral Path, as he can still read a microscope slide and perform examinations, although I don't think he did much in the way of biopsies.
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Do whatever is within your comfort zone. I tried to learn to rollerblade while in college and never got the hang of it. I finally got rid of them when I graduated dental school and realized I was never going to be good at it. I have never been skiing and at this point, I have no desire to ever go. I love my little car but lately like DocJL, I've been slowly wondering if it's time for something with a few more layers of metal to it and a few feet higher off the ground.
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I honestly didn't know self-employed dentists are in the same hellhole rat race, surviving paycheck to paycheck, as the rest of society. Where are their minimum six-month backup income reserve? Why couldn't they get some new grad to kind of maintain their practice part-time until they fully recover?
Common sense answer, really.
everybody's situation is different. read "the millionaire next door". I think the ADA says that only 3% of dentists can retire with the same standard of living at age 62. Why? because although we earn alot, we also spend alot.
It's also not a question of "surviving paycheck to paycheck". Have I saved enough money to stay home for several months? yes, I could technically take a couple of years off, but that would be pretty foolish for me to blow my savings, wouldn't it? I'm gonna need that money to retire on someday. and you cannot just let a practice sit idle. it will lose steam. and value. as a dentist yourself that should be obvious.
In my own situation, hiring an unknown associate or temp dentist, particularly a new grad as you mentioned, was not a good option. I have a comprehensive practice with a fair share of implant and cosmetic dentistry. complex endo and surgery are typically NOT referred. These types of patients might not feel comfortable with a young new graduate working on them, and the scope of treatment would probably be beyond most recent graduates (I certainly would not have been able to handle the same types of procedures after graduating dental school, or even 2 or 3 years out of school). Dentists are also very expensive employees, and if you cannot keep them busy (which again depends on the type of practice you run) you will be lucky if they even cover the overhead. While I do know many other dentists who would have been able to handle much of the treatment in my office, they all have their own offices, which keeps them very busy. I had a good friend cover for me for a few days, just to be a presence in the practice, and just paid him a small amount for his time, he did it more as a favor than anything else.
If I were to get in a car accident or something and totally NOT be able to work for a longer period of time, then I would have to hire somebody, anybody just to try to keep the office solvent.
But if I can come in and see pts at a slower pace, and only a single column of pts while I recover, its not that hard, and I am still better off financially then to pay another DDS $500-$1000 per day to work for me (especially if I have no idea if they are a quality dentist, and if I will be on the hook for any redos). for this couple of months I am happy to just cover my office overhead, I am still young enough that I am healing quickly.
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I didn't say anything about burning through your lifetime savings and letting the practice idle to nothing; plus the practice won't decrease in value simply because the the dentist is out 2-3 months instead of one. I was simply wondering why ALL the dentists mentioned here had to return in one month instead of three months despite being in so much pain. It could just as easily happen to me, too so I'm just trying understand their thought, worries, and experience to better prepare myslef. Thanks for your response.
