who pays for most of dental care?

[dmd2006]

Is this from insurance or cash flow? any idea?

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[staceyk]

This depends on demographic... but from my experience, at my father's office here in Toronto, payments are largely from the insurance companies. Keep in mind that most insurance policies do not cover dental work 100%, so the patients are responsible for the co-insurance unless they have dual coverage.

 

[MD2b20004]

This depends on demographic... but from my experience, at my father's office here in Toronto, payments are largely from the insurance companies. Keep in mind that most insurance policies do not cover dental work 100%, so the patients are responsible for the co-insurance unless they have dual coverage.

Like the previous poster explained it depends, but you want your office in a less saturated more upperclass area if you are in for the money and want to avoid the T-19, etc... below average payouts for procedures.

 

[staceyk]

Also, many specialists (that I know of) do not accept assignment of benefits so the patient is responsible for 100% of the fee and must submit the claims themselves.

So it also depends on whether you're running a general practice or not.

 

[aphistis]

Like the previous poster explained it depends, but you want your office in a less saturated more upperclass area if you are in for the money and want to avoid the T-19, etc... below average payouts for procedures.

Problem is, every other dentist is thinking the same thing, which means wealthy communities are almost invariably packed with every sort of professional under the sun. You can choose a less saturated or more wealthy area to practice, but good luck finding both in one place.

 

[DrJeff]

I asked my office manager to get me a breakdown of what % of my office collections last year were from insurance companies vs. self pay. And in my relatively rural to somewhat suburban area of Connecticut 63.5% of our 2005 collections were from insurance companies and the remaining 36.5% percent were self pay either in the from of cash, check, credit card or third party payments(i.e. Care Credit, etc). Included in this self pay portion is the "balance billing" of what patients who have insurance need to pay as their co-pay, this accounted for 55% of the self pay collection money in my office in 2005.

When I looked a little deeper at these numbers, I found out that 68.2% of the almost 6000 active patients in my practice have some form of dental insurance.

 

[MD2b20004]

I asked my office manager to get me a breakdown of what % of my office collections last year were from insurance companies vs. self pay. And in my relatively rural to somewhat suburban area of Connecticut 63.5% of our 2005 collections were from insurance companies and the remaining 36.5% percent were self pay either in the from of cash, check, credit card or third party payments(i.e. Care Credit, etc). Included in this self pay portion is the "balance billing" of what patients who have insurance need to pay as their co-pay, this accounted for 55% of the self pay collection money in my office in 2005.

When I looked a little deeper at these numbers, I found out that 68.2% of the almost 6000 active patients in my practice have some form of dental insurance.

So what's your gross vs overhead. My friend (sole owner), grosses 1.3 Million 4 years out of dental school in the Midwest and has around 60% overhead, after uncle sam takes his tab, he ends up with around 140K net.

 

[gator1210]

So what's your gross vs overhead. My friend (sole owner), grosses 1.3 Million 4 years out of dental school in the Midwest and has around 60% overhead, after uncle sam takes his tab, he ends up with around 140K net.

Haha...your friend is either filing his taxes wrong or uncle sam is ripping him off. or both.

 

[xxxTheDonxxx]

So what's your gross vs overhead. My friend (sole owner), grosses 1.3 Million 4 years out of dental school in the Midwest and has around 60% overhead, after uncle sam takes his tab, he ends up with around 140K net.

does your friend work 4 days (8 hrs/day) or 5 days a week?

 

[xxxTheDonxxx]

Is this from insurance or cash flow? any idea?

It depends on the area where you work. If you work in a low income area like where I work at (as a dental assitant) the cash flow will be mainly from medicare. He has to work twice as hard to get the same amount of money. He's a dedicated doctor; real nice guy...out to help the poor. However, this dentist has a low %overhead because he's a thinker...i learned a couple of tricks from him.

 

[aphistis]

Haha...your friend is either filing his taxes wrong or uncle sam is ripping him off. or both.

Not necessarily. Investments? Tax shelters? If they're doing it right, the $140,000 is mostly play money. Beats the heck of the living-expense allowance I give myself out of my student loans.

 

[xxxTheDonxxx]

Not necessarily. Investments? Tax shelters? If they're doing it right, the $140,000 is mostly play money. Beats the heck of the living-expense allowance I give myself out of my student loans.

How long do you guys think a typical dentist will pay off his student loans (200K) and his practice (about 500k)? considering that he got a family to raise. Gosh...i don't even want to think about it. hopefully not more than 5-6 years.

 

[gator1210]

Not necessarily. Investments? Tax shelters? If they're doing it right, the $140,000 is mostly play money. Beats the heck of the living-expense allowance I give myself out of my student loans.

Sure, sure... federal taxes on 520 grand shouldnt be more than 175-200 grand. He must be reinvesting in his practice, smuggling the money to the caymans, or something....

either way, your right, the less profit you show, the less taxes

 

[1FutureDDS]

Why don't you ask this on the dentaltown forum. This forum is highly filled with people who AREN'T dentists yet and have no idea about money flow!!!!!!!!!!

 

[aphistis]

How long do you guys think a typical dentist will pay off his student loans (200K) and his practice (about 500k)? considering that he got a family to raise. Gosh...i don't even want to think about it. hopefully not more than 5-6 years.

Considering my loans are at about 3% right now, I'm going to take as much time as I can convince them to give me. I've got much better things to do with that money than pay off loans with such a low interest rate.

Paying off debt as fast as possible isn't ever a *bad* idea, but there are a lot of circumstances where it's not necessarily the best idea either.