The dilemma of my life :/

[charlestweed]

Supply and demand. I have nothing against hygienists making more. They went to school for less time and debt than dentists. It’s a great career to be in now. I can see some pre-dents jumping over to the hygiene path.

Question is… will some new dentist grads do part time hygiene gigs over dentistry to make easy money on the side the first couple of years out of school? No malpractice insurance. No complex cases. More time to be on TikTok. lol

The dentists, who only want a stress free job and have the YOLO mentality, may consider this easy "dental hygiene" option. But most of the hard working dentists want to go for the next better thing in life......they want to move up the ladder.....they want to learn to do complex procedures to gain the experience so they can get better paid jobs (jobs that pay them % of the production) elsewhere. And when they open their own practice, they will be ready to take on difficult tasks. One will never learn anything if he/she avoids doing things that are difficult.

Dentists can open their own practice.....and the sky's the limit. The hygienist can't own a practice...even if they can open one (in certain states), no patients would go to see them because the limited scope of practice.

I haven't yet met a successful dentist who is lazy and only wants to do simple low stress cleaning procedures. There's no such thing as luck.

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[pma96]

Hard to find to be honest. I will be moving to Palm Beach county, which is ~ 1hr away from Miami.

You will need to spend 1.2+ mil to find anything decent in Miami-Dade or Broward county.

Below is a house in Broward for sale: I think this is decent

4280 SW 178th Ave, Miramar, FL 33029 | Zillow

4280 SW 178th Ave, Miramar FL, is a Single Family home that contains 3409 sq ft and was built in 2022.It contains 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.This home last sold for $930,000 in April 2023. The Zestimate for this Single Family is $961,500, which has decreased by $11,819 in the last 30 days.The...

www.zillow.com

Depends on what you define as decent. And on the neighborhood. Coral Gables and surroundings are extremely expensive, but you can find a decent 700k house if you go a little more north to broward or Palm Beach.

 

[Lemillion]

Question is… will some new dentist grads do part time hygiene gigs over dentistry to make easy money on the side the first couple of years out of school? No malpractice insurance. No complex cases. More time to be on TikTok. lol

Makes sense, I think it is a good idea for all the same reasons especially on the side. I could see some open to doing it but then others will let their ego get in the way. I had some co-residents/classmates who thought once they graduated dental school or even started residency they were too cool do prophys/SRPs anymore.

 

[Splenda88]

Depends on what you define as decent. And on the neighborhood. Coral Gables and surroundings are extremely expensive, but you can find a decent 700k house if you go a little more north to broward or Palm Beach.

Coral Gables is for the bourgeois.

 

[Thehighwind87]

Makes sense, I think it is a good idea for all the same reasons especially on the side. I could see some open to doing it but then others will let their ego get in the way. I had some co-residents/classmates who thought once they graduated dental school or even started residency they were too cool do prophys/SRPs anymore.

What’s ironic about this is that if you do this on the side- one Saturday or Friday every other week- you actually come out ahead compared to working as a GP.

Regardless the entire field doesn’t have much promise:

Airline pilots got sharpest pay increases since 2010; dentists, the smallest. See if your job made the list.

Airline pilots got sharpest pay increase past 10 years while dentists got the most modest. 5 occupations with sharpest pay hikes, and 5 with smallest

finance.yahoo.com

Guess who got the lowest salary bump? Have fun working more for less.

I think a lot of GP and associate dentists gonna start moonlighting as a hygienist for 66-70 and hour

 

[charlestweed]

Makes sense, I think it is a good idea for all the same reasons especially on the side. I could see some open to doing it but then others will let their ego get in the way. I had some co-residents/classmates who thought once they graduated dental school or even started residency they were too cool do prophys/SRPs anymore.

That’s what many of my dentist friends here in SoCal are doing. Instead of paying the hygienist $80-100k every year, they get to keep that whole amount for themselves by doing all the prophies and SRPs themselves. They don’t have to worry about finding enough patients to keep the hygienists busy……about paying the hygienists for sitting around doing nothing. Without the hygienists, they manage to keep the overhead below 50%. They work 5+ days/wk and on Saturdays…..they make plenty of $$$....and they don’t go on here and complain. The dentists that work 4 days/wk (either because they are too picky about the job offers or they refuse to work more days) don’t make enough….can’t pay their bills. And instead of working more days to increase their income, they come to this forum and complain that the field is dying.

If you put in the same number of work hours as the hygienist, you will make a lot more than the hygienist. If you put in the same number of work hours as the physicians, you will make comparable amount as the physicians. It’s simple math: you work more hours = you earn higher income. You don’t work…..you stay home…you don’t make money.

 

[Lemillion]

What’s ironic about this is that if you do this on the side- one Saturday or Friday every other week- you actually come out ahead compared to working as a GP.

Regardless the entire field doesn’t have much promise:

Airline pilots got sharpest pay increases since 2010; dentists, the smallest. See if your job made the list.

Airline pilots got sharpest pay increase past 10 years while dentists got the most modest. 5 occupations with sharpest pay hikes, and 5 with smallest

finance.yahoo.com

Guess who got the lowest salary bump? Have fun working more for less.

I think a lot of GP and associate dentists gonna start moonlighting as a hygienist for 66-70 and hour

Interesting article! I noticed how they mentioned the significant tuition increases for dental school in the last decade.

 

[Lemillion]

That’s what many of my dentist friends here in SoCal are doing. Instead of paying the hygienist $80-100k every year, they get to keep that whole amount for themselves by doing all the prophies and SRPs themselves. They don’t have to worry about finding enough patients to keep the hygienists busy……about paying the hygienists for sitting around doing nothing. Without the hygienists, they manage to keep the overhead below 50%. They work 5+ days/wk and on Saturdays…..they make plenty of $$$....and they don’t go on here and complain. The dentists that work 4 days/wk (either because they are too picky about the job offers or they refuse to work more days) don’t make enough….can’t pay their bills. And instead of working more days to increase their income, they come to this forum and complain that the field is dying.

If you put in the same number of work hours as the hygienist, you will make a lot more than the hygienist. If you put in the same number of work hours as the physicians, you will make comparable amount as the physicians. It’s simple math: you work more hours = you earn higher income. You don’t work…..you stay home…you don’t make money.

True, they need to preach this more during dental schools. We had so many retired dentists that talked about the luxury life after graduation and how they retired early (etc, etc, etc). Got it in the students head about how the money was going to come flowing in. Still possible, just gotta work for it lol.

 

[Thehighwind87]

Interesting article! I noticed how they mentioned the significant tuition increases for dental school in the last decade.

The bottom line is you work harder for less which means if you sit still (work 4 days a week work 8 hours a day) you will fall behind. You need to open up more days, hours, and just work harder for the same amount...that you made a few years ago. Compound that with time 5-10 years, and you will work 20-30% harder to make the same amount (inflation adjusted) for 2023. Dentistry according to the article has had the worst time with inflation and I doubt it will get better.

So open up another day, open up more hours, open up more slots, and figure it out! At least older dentists had reasonable tuition/reasonable housing costs. Today's tuition and cost of living (housing) is insane. Everyone is feeling it, but at least they don't have huge student loans to figure out. Hopefully the current or next administration will do blanket loan forgiveness or something. They have started forgiving some amounts of student loans- which is the correct step...and as time goes on those amounts will prob go up to full complete forgiveness.

That's what alot of my graduated friends are doing- paying down the minimal and waiting for blanket loan forgiveness. Will it happen or not is up in the air, but hey suspension of student loan payments for the past 2 years + talk of forgiveness...things are trending towards possible forgiveness

 

[charlestweed]

So open up another day, open up more hours, open up more slots, and figure it out!

Opening more days and adding more slots will not help increase your income if your office doesn’t have enough patients to fill those extra days/slots. It actually hurts your income because you have to pay your staff more to work those extra days. To make more, you either work extra days at another office as an associate or fire your hygienist and do your own cleanings. Being efficient is key.

At least older dentists had reasonable tuition/reasonable housing costs. Today's tuition and cost of living (housing) is insane. Everyone is feeling it, but at least they don't have huge student loans to figure out. Hopefully the current or next administration will do blanket loan forgiveness or something. They have started forgiving some amounts of student loans- which is the correct step...and as time goes on those amounts will prob go up to full complete forgiveness.

Even when things were much cheaper for us and we owed less debt, many of us still had to work 5+ days a week right after graduation. What make the new grads think that they will be fine with working 4 days a week? To make up for the low fees (due to oversaturation here in CA), we had to work more days per week so we could make the same as the colleagues who practice in other states.

The current state of dentistry in CA is the preview of what dentistry in other parts of the country will be like in the future. If we, California dentists, can do it, so can the new grads who practice in states.

 

[Thehighwind87]

Opening more days and adding more slots will not help increase your income if your office doesn’t have enough patients to fill those extra days/slots. It actually hurts your income because you have to pay your staff more to work those extra days. To make more, you either work extra days at another office as an associate or fire your hygienist and do your own cleanings. Being efficient is key.


Even when things were much cheaper for us and we owed less debt, many of us still had to work 5+ days a week right after graduation. What make the new grads think that they will be fine with working 4 days a week? To make up for the low fees (due to oversaturation here in CA), we had to work more days per week so we could make the same as the colleagues who practice in other states.

The current state of dentistry in CA is the review of what dentistry in other parts of the country will be like in the future. If we, California dentists, can do it, so can the new grads who practice in states.

Yep that's why I wrote "figure it out." Being more efficient is key.

Yep, total agree with the state of dentistry in California. I have a few colleagues that opened up in socal-norcal and the fees are terrible. I wonder whats the point of buying a starter home in san jose for 1-2million and make way less compared to a texas or cheaper cost of living dentist. 500k BIG house in Georgia/North Carolina/Texas/South Carolina/Arizona with decent fees>1-2 million dollar fixer upper with crummy fee schedule/oversaturation bay area dentist.

One of the CA dentists is planning on selling his practice and house in a few years and moving to Arizona. He is fed up working for less and of course in Arizona they can get a bigger house and live comfortably.

 

[FutureDent020]

500k BIG house in North Carolina with decent fees

Just to clarify. The bigger more popular cities in the NC are expensive as hell and very saturated. Fees are low and competition high. Housing market has boomed almost more than any area in the US. 500K does not get you a nice house closer to a city anymore. Look at Charlotte specifically. NC, specifically urban areas, are not the promise land they use to be. I can’t speak for the other states you mentioned.

 

[PerioDont]

Just to clarify. The bigger more popular cities in the NC are expensive as hell and very saturated. Fees are low and competition high. Housing market has boomed almost more than any area in the US. 500K does not get you a nice house closer to a city anymore. Look at Charlotte specifically. NC, specifically urban areas, are not the promise land they use to be. I can’t speak for the other states you mentioned.

the same is true for Arizona. my parents bought a house for 400k in 2006 in Chandler, a solid middle class suburban area. Now it is 1million plus for every house on their street

 

[Thehighwind87]

Wow...where are the hotspots then? Back in the 2010's it was all about Texas. Big land, cheap land, big opportunities.

 

[FutureDent020]

Wow...where are the hotspots then? Back in the 2010's it was all about Texas. Big land, cheap land, big opportunities.

I think it’s all relative. NC’s nicer cities are still a hotspot for those from CA and NY. Because their $1.5 million “fixer upper or 1500 sq ft town house” can get them a nice house in a solid area. But where are the hotspots for good living with avg home prices? Probably the areas you mentioned, but about an hour outside the popular cities.

 

[Splenda88]

Yep that's why I wrote "figure it out." Being more efficient is key.

Yep, total agree with the state of dentistry in California. I have a few colleagues that opened up in socal-norcal and the fees are terrible. I wonder whats the point of buying a starter home in san jose for 1-2million and make way less compared to a texas or cheaper cost of living dentist. 500k BIG house in Georgia/North Carolina/Texas/South Carolina/Arizona with decent fees>1-2 million dollar fixer upper with crummy fee schedule/oversaturation bay area dentist.

One of the CA dentists is planning on selling his practice and house in a few years and moving to Arizona. He is fed up working for less and of course in Arizona they can get a bigger house and live comfortably.

Not in Atlanta and its popular (i.e. good school districts) suburbs.