Medical and dental billing models are entirely different. The medical side is completely corrupt. There are incredibly high list fees that nobody pays. They are artificial constructs.
Dental fees, however, are more likely to represent reality. Dentists have real fees schedules that are close to what most patients pay. There are no 50% write-offs, like in medicine. The poor schmucks that take Medicaid may receive 30% of their usual fee. That is why very few dentists in Georgia mess with Medicaid.
But don’t worry, the insurance companies are working to convert dentists to the corrupt and deceptive insurance medical model.
The point is that you knew, or should have known what the orthodontics business is like before you committed to the trade. Poor people, dishonest people and people who are irresponsible with money are all born with teeth and many need them straightened. If they want them fixed they are forced to use your services. That combination results in a receivables problem.
The average GA orthodontist makes $225K/yr. With your own operation, after 30 years you’re likely in the net $350K-+ area. It comes with the territory… suck it up.
Need is a STRONG word. Need as in need straight nope - that is a WANT. Need as in not to have all teeth fall out. Yes that’s a need. Sometimes a greater priority occurs. Maybe you need a gum procedure or root canal and/or crown and can’t afford braces
I have never been able to afford orthodontics. There was always a greater priority. Someone else who needed dental work more than me. If braces were important enough I would have had them but I didn’t see spacing as a legitimate need for braces
A consumer’s need is a motivation to act. A basic tenent of marketing is to develop that need in the buyer’s mind to the point of action. Hence the orthodontist’s “happy smiles” advertising campaigns.
IOW… no one buys anything unless they have a need, (read “a problem to solve.” So, although you may not consider your dental alignment needs are urgent enough to have remedied, others, with even smaller discrepancies might. It is their right to do so, even if you, me or anyone else feels they don’t need to have it done.
First of all, I am not an orthodontist. I am a GP who does some orthodontics.
So students should know what laws and business conditions will exist years after they start their professional education? Would that humans could foretell the future so accurately.
Salaries sound big until you factor student debt repayment. They recently interviewed an orthodontist gradauate of a private dental school and residency that had $1 million of student debt. How much money does it take to amortize that every year?
In the old days all professional advertising was banned. It was a better time. Fewer patients were misled by junk advertisements on TV. How many patients have been swindled by joints like Aspen Dental because of deceptive TV advertisements?
Don’t laugh, I have seen $25. Meanwhile, hygienists demand at least $40 an hour + benefits in Georgia.
Companies want to spend as little money as possible convincing workers they have “great” benefit plans. Insurance companies are happy to help with the deception. So they create plans with impressive stats like “X Procedure covered at 100%.” Employees are thrilled. Except the mouse print says “100% of ALLOWABLE fees.” Ultra-low allowable fees are a money-loser for any honest provider. So crooks sign up as prostituting providers, because they can commit fraud in various forms to eek out a profit. All at the patient’s expense. Unbundling and upcoding procedures are popular ways of gaming the system. Referring out complicated things to specialists is another.
So change the $225K/yr to $200K/yr and your office net to $350K/yr.
Surely you discussed the business with practicing dentists before you hung out your shingle, didn’t you?
It appears you stumbled upon an anomaly in the example you cited. The average dental school debt peaked in 2020 at $318,500 but has decreased to $286,200 since then.
No. Health professionals are very secretive about their gross and net incomes. They never discussed it with young students. I got into dentistry because I thought I would enjoy the work, and knew I could make enough to survive. Sadly I burned up my life savings and almost bankrupted in my first practice in rural Georgia during the recession of 1980 (Also the biggest crop failure in 74 years in South Georgia.)
I did not count on half the county population being on Medicaid, with money-losing fees, who did not show up for appointments half the time. Virtually the same thing happened to a classmate in nearby Ocilla, Georgia.
Ignorant laymen like you vastly underestimate the difficulty in turning a profit in private practice. But of course by virtue of reading junk on the internet, you think yourself to be an expert.
Did you ever wonder why the profession you wanted to enter was so secretive about their gross and net incomes? Seems like a curious feature to me. BTW… aside from normal innate modesty, I’ve not experienced that phenomena among my friends in the medical professions.
I have friends who had similar experiences in the latter half of the eighties. Some in construction and some in agriculture. It was a tough time. One friend in AK even had to sell his airplane, and for an Alaskan pilot, that’s a big deal!
Bad location choice? Didn’t they have any basic business classes in the dental programs you took?
Your propensity to rely on your instincts to find reason’s to align the conversation with your narrow thinking really shows in your use of descriptors like “Ignorant laymen like you” Henrius. It tends to make you appear arrogant and uncaring. I hope you don’t employ that persona with patients in your operatory… or do you?
I completely agree that we should expect health care costs to increase, especially given the current situation around the world. There is just so much uncertainty surrounding the pandemic and what measures need to be taken, making it difficult for health care providers to plan and budget effectively.
Furthermore, with more and more people contracting respiratory illnesses, there is an increasing demand for medication such as the Ryaltris Nasal Spray. This will likely cause prices to go up, which will in turn drive up the costs of health care. I usually buy it here Buy Ryaltris Nasal Spray - Allergy Relief Medication | CanPharm but recently prices started to increase too.
While many individuals have health insurance to cover some of these costs, not everyone does. In fact, the uninsured rate has been on the rise in recent years, meaning that more and more people will likely be left with exorbitant bills they cannot afford.
It’s important to keep this in mind when considering our health care system and how we can improve it for the future. We need to find ways to reduce costs while still providing high-quality care to those who need it most, including those who rely on medications like Ryaltris Nasal Spray.
Like it or not, our ageing demography and low birth rate does not portend well for future health care in the US or developed nations. There simply won’t be enough labor (nor money to pay for the labor) to give us the health care we think we need and deserve.
The only solution will be those with the financial means going to third world countries and paying good physicians cash for treatment.
And yes there will be arbitrage clandestinely buying meds in the the 3rd world and reselling them here.
There is no getting around the fact that in the future, seniors getting treatment on the taxpayer dime will have to be denied very expensive treatment near the end of life. Government heal care schemes have a budget and decisions have to be made. Transplants for the aged may be something we read about in the history books in the future.
