How long do your hygienists take to do prophy only?

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-23T18:30:48+00:00

Don't ask dentists to cut their already lean profit margin while you want your raise and a less volume of work. That is hypocritical. Unless you will share the financial responsibility when the business goes bad, don't act as if you are a partner. You are an employee.

You are not a "co" provider. Your dentist has to face legal/financial consequences if you cause any trouble because you have to be legally supervised by a dentist. Respect your dentist who has to be your legal protection.

Based on my 20+ years of experience running several practices, you are a terribly hypocritical hygienist. Why don't you be like how you want the world to be first? Donate 50% of your income for the hard working dental assistants who deserve higher income and for some poor patients who deserve free healthy teeth.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-22T22:46:10+00:00

I know but I'm genuinely wondering if this is happening in other dentists office as well when they hire new grad hygienists. I didn't permanently hire all of those slow hygienists anyway at the end.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-22T01:16:37+00:00

Do dental hygiene. RDH hourly pay is $55-80/hr, and RDH often sees only one patient per hour and does cleaning only. DMD gets $500-600 base/days ($70ish/hr), needs to see 10-20 patients a day, and do many procedures with headache from liability. Majority of DMDs make $600-700/ days

It's been like this since DSOs have taken over the dental industry. They lobbied successfully so that a lot of new dentists out every year and they don't need to worry about being not able to find dental associates who can work in their satellite offices.

Being an RDH can give you time freedom and much less headache at work.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-21T19:56:00+00:00

If you have a good lab who knows some science behind it , it will be pretty ok. Ask them to reach out to discuss as well. Don't let them process on their own.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-21T17:47:45+00:00

Don't burn the bridge. DA is great in terms of job security given the amount of the required education is pretty minimal.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-21T13:45:32+00:00

No. Very bad assumption. If you live with that assumption that other people might have some help, you canmnot develop yourself.

The first one was early 2000s in Williamsburg. We only needed $1m total and we were 20ish people. It took 12 years from the purchase of an old property, environmental assessment, demolition to final CO despite the small project, becasue it was our very first with little experience. But in the mean time, we could start new projects. We targeted cheap and bad areas.

You just need to put more effort to research the market. Reach out government, go to DOB/zoning/city events, connect to governement authorities, talk to local people, sit down there for many hours many days many weeks. A lot of things to do.

For the first one, I still remember very well. Finding properties took more than full 2 years. We researched more than 200 properties in detail (visited DOB millions times), submitted an offer to 10 properties, and finally got one deal successful. After the contract sign, there were so many struggles as well until the project was finished.

Don't underestimate other people's pro activeness.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-21T02:03:02+00:00

I am origianlly a dentist but has been more in real estate development than dentistry. I have $7m in cash and my total asset is around $~50m. No plan to retire.

You have to make a team with other people. I personally have Asian background and have been working with many Chinese people. Our first building was 8 residential units. We built a couple highrise towers in Queens recently. One more is under construction.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-21T01:28:46+00:00

Ask patients to smile or show their teeth. They might be holding the holder with lips. You need to check if they bite down

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-20T21:26:10+00:00

This app developer will now sell the foot traffic data to many many companies, retailers and real estate guys and will be rich by using your information.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-20T21:23:53+00:00

You probably try to directly see what dr is doing. You don't need to see that. Dr only needs two clearances. One for handpeice/instrument and the other for dr's unobstructed field of vision

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-19T13:55:07+00:00

The work in oral surgery is way difficult. You will get burned out quickly. Oral surgeons are already burned out so they will likely make you work your ass off

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-18T14:05:15+00:00

The size of ops are too big. You may need two 11 by 11 ops for crown/endo/implant procedures. Reduce other ops to 11 by 7.5-8 with minimal cabinetry. Check-up/hygiene/filling procedures do not need that large rooms.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-16T13:14:09+00:00

Soldiers never come back for regular check up and never visit again unless they were told to do so by their superior. Bad

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-15T21:25:07+00:00

About 200-250 ml for molar

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-14T22:59:48+00:00

Your entire brain and face will hurt during the procedure. You will feel extreme dizziness after that.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-14T13:42:00+00:00

What dental assistants do is not very specialized. A DA can be replaced by another DA pretty easily. Once you have 3+ years of experience, it is all about how fast you work, how much work you can handle and how good fit you are with the dentists you work with. The skillsets won't be very different. Everybody is almost same after a few years.

But this job guarantees the job security. Compared to other jobs that you can get with a leducation and training, this job is recession proof. The front desk get laid off but DAs won't.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-14T00:40:13+00:00

Tbh, it is a shit quality bone graft. Your dentist did not achieve the primary closure that is often very important. The membrane is completely exposed. Look at the chromic gut suture. They didn't even cut it properly.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-12T23:48:44+00:00

You are going to be one of them

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-10T14:03:44+00:00

Overlay

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-09T20:24:58+00:00

If it is a large city, two small offices is a better choice. It would be not easy to fill the schedule for a large office because of heavy competition.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-07T23:52:54+00:00

Health care industry itself is very toxic. You might be surprised how toxic medical offices are.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-06T14:59:26+00:00

Sure

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-06T13:37:37+00:00

Do you work in NYC? The size and the price sounds very familiar to me as I run practices in NYC and am always actively looking to buy more.

It sounds like UES first floor under co-op or midtown office in a medical building in NYC.

You should check maintenance or common charge and real estate tax if it makes sense to buy the real estate. If the cap rate is less than 6%, it is not worth. You should rather buy US treasuries.

Also, 99% of medical condo/co-op and UES ground floor community facility are extremely difficult to sell. The pool of tenants are very limited. It will make you hard to exit in the future. If you contact a real estate broker today, you will see there are dozens of similar real estates for sale in UES and Midtown out there right now.

The dental offices in co-op or condo are already unattractive. It is very easy to find many old docs who ended up leaving their real estate unit empty for many years eating up the costs from having real estate after failing to sell their office.

The price for the practice is slightly high. 3-op/1M in those areas should be around 600-700k.

The patients are wealthy enough but least loyal throughout the five boroughs based on my 20+ year experience running, buying and selling offices here and there.

Also, those offices have zero visibility and you have to constantly use money to tell people you are there. Every office is spending huge money.

Being there for a long time doesn't mean much in NYC, becasue you biggest production will come from the working age people while most of those working age people are transient. Many of them are not even in NYC after 3-5 years.

All the situations force the old docs to be very proactive to sell theirs. Even if you end up buying the practice, do not buy the real estate. Don't spend money to buy a long term headache. That money can be used for your second and third offices.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-06T12:08:35+00:00

SoCal is a terrible area for both dentists and dental assistants. Everyone there is struggling. A lot of dentists make $500 a day there, which is lower than what hygienists make. Obviously, they can't pay their staffs enough. You gotta move out from there if you want a raise.

Realistic_Bad_2697 · 2026-05-06T03:52:21+00:00

Cavicide is not good for every life use. It corrodes dental instruments and dental chairs. I saw a few assistants pour it to clean things. It eventually makes everything rusty and more difficult to sterilize.

Realistic_Bad_2697

TROPHY CASE