What is the limit you would go into debt for a dental degree?
Not bad enough where I will be finally debt free in my 50s and having to live in middle of nowhere just to make a living
As I said earlier, you can't do it alone. You need a lot of helps from your spouse, who can help pay other bills while you are trying to pay off your student loans and setting up your own practice.
All dentists are not created equal. Some handle the pressure better than others. Some are willing to work harder than others. Some can perform good dentistry with less than ideal equipment (at a chain) better than others. Some complain about everything. Some work twice as fast and do better quality work than others. That’s why at a chain office, you have a managing dentist who handles all difficult procedures and gets paid 3-4x more. And you have a slower associate dentist, who performs easier less productive procedures. If an associate can’t produce or receives a lot of complaints from patients, he/she has to be let go. I’m sure that slow associate can get another job elsewhere if he/she is willing to look for it. When a middle-aged engineer gets laid off, it’s hard for him/her to find another job.
agreed.
man thats disheartening to hear. I always wanted to be a dentist, but the numbers don't make sense to me. It really is between choosing the smart option or choosing my heart. What you recommend?
Nah. We choose to work on weekends and late hours because we want to make a lot of money so we can pay down our debts faster. We work at our own office on weekends and we supplement our income with an associate job during the weekdays. That’s double income right there. If the spouse also does the same thing, that will quadruple the income. Many physicians don’t have that choice. When a surgeon and an anesthesiologist get called in at 2am on a Sunday, they can’t say no because a patient’s life is in their hands. An OBGYN has to deliver babies at odd hours on X-mas, New Year, and other major holidays. In addition to working at the office 8 hours a day, many doctors have to work 1-2 more hours at home....filling prescriptions, writing referrals, reviewing lab results, doing dictations etc. Many doctors have to sleep at the hospital and don’t see their families for 1-2 days. One day, my cousin, who is an anesthesiologist, got called in for an epidural at 2 am. He only got paid $200 for that procedure because patient has medicaid. A dentist makes more than that for doing 1 crown prep and nobody wakes him/her up at 2am.
….a nice car really makes my daily travel to different offices less stressful) than having to report to a lead or to a supervisor like my old part time busboy and newspaper delivery jobs that I had during my college years. Dentistry = better income, better hours, being your own boss, a more respected profession.
Comatose, I hear you. I used to work as a general dentist (GPR+ moonlight at a medicaid clinic on Saturdays and Sundays). It’s not easy. That’s why I decided to specialize. At least by accepting medicaid, you have something to do instead of sitting around doing nothing and still have to pay rent and staff salaries. At least these low reimbursements help you pay down your debts, especially when your office is new and doesn’t have a lot of patients. Getting paid something is better than zero. When you turn a medicaid patient away, you turn away a potential word-of-mouth referral. If you treat a medicaid patient well, he’ll refer you his friends and relatives, who have good insurance or pay cash. Don’t assume that medicaid patients don’t have money. When they need an implant for a missing tooth, they’ll find ways to come up with the money to pay for it since medicaid doesn’t cover implant. The more patients you treat, the more referrals you’ll get. The more challenging cases you have to deal with, the better and faster dentist you will become.
What are your productions/overheard like that's letting you collect 500k in revenue?
He didn't say that was his revenue, just that you'll be making 500k many times over (as in a multiple of that, not just annual). But in his AMA I believe he mentioned he had 2 mil in productions annually if I recall correctly.
Wow that is a **** ton of dentistry that's being done.
My medical school loans are paid over 30 years. That decreases the payment per month...
Better be praying DC doesn't change PSLF between now and then. How are you going to feel if out of fiscal reality forgiveness is capped at $50,000 like President Obama had proposed?
Simplest way for DC to work around this thorny issue is to change the tax rules pertaining to the forgiven balance to have it considered taxable income, as with the other income based repayment plans. Tax bomb, anyone? Technically, your loans were still forgiven as "promised." Something like 10x the number of people are planning on PSLF than originally planned, so it's costs are going to be out of control! Gear up for Washington to get its money one way or another. Mr. Average Joe American Voter will not be happy to absorb the cost of healthcare professionals' exorbitant student loans while he is earning a mere fraction of what they are. The PSLF "doctor loophole," as it is called, will be closed.
