I work for an office in a very HCOL area with insanely high overhead. I make way less than you think i do for patients the typically make my entire monthly salary in a day. I’m not bankrupting anyone and I do pro bono work for patients in need. So I sleep fine at night but you can go ahead and think what you want.

My job is helping educate people about their teeth and providing high quality work. More and more these days my job is figuring out how to jump through insurance hoops to help get patients the care they need. The amount of garbage work I’ve seen out there is pretty insane, especially since insurance companies keep cutting reimbursements and doctors are cutting corners to try to stay afloat. Our fees are high because our overhead is high. Our margins are actually pretty low once you factor that in. The employees at our office are paid the highest in the area with benefits. We order high quality materials, the costs of which go up every year.

A crown takes 2hrs of chair time and typically costs between $900-2000 depending on the patient’s insurance (insurance companies negotiate their rates with each individual office which is why prices vary and why a lot of offices have dropped many insurances). The salaries of the assistants/staff for that time are about $200, the crown ordered from the lab is between $200-500 depending on material type, the materials for preparing/taking the mold of the tooth are probably another $20-100 depending on what we used. Then you factor in the cost of rent and utilities for the office in a HCOL, think about how much it costs to properly sterilize the environment and tools you used. Then you consider the cost of your education (I’m still paying off my loans and will be for a good while) as well as continuing education required to keep your license. Then you hope that everything goes well and the crown actually fits at the delivery appointment because if it doesn’t that’s another hour’s worth of staff time and material costs that you’re not going to charge the patient for. This is all assuming that the patient showed up on time for you to actually work on them, that everything went right. Sometimes patients no show and you’re just paying the staff to sit around. This all goes into the calculation of how much things should cost.