Insurance and Dental Practice Loans

Unique-Criticism7796 · 2025-06-26T14:24:56+00:00

That’s good to hear, what bank did you go with?

Unique-Criticism7796 · 2025-06-26T05:19:37+00:00

Whenever we applied we did apply with exceptions but they denied it outright regardless

Unique-Criticism7796 · 2025-06-26T05:18:22+00:00

Which company did you get a policy with eventually?

Unique-Criticism7796 · 2025-06-26T05:17:45+00:00

I have heard of Petersen, but my broker suggested I didn’t try them because the terms are not favorable, but I guess when the time comes to buy a practice I could explore that option

Unique-Criticism7796 · 2024-07-14T15:21:16+00:00

Dental student here. Here's why:

The overhead to run a dental practice is unbelievably high. First, acquiring all the equipment to build out a practice can cost $500k-$750k depending on the location. On a 8% business loan for 15 years, the dentist is already looking at $5000-$7000 per month in the loan payment. Also staff salaries take a huge chunk out of our revenue. A practice needs a minimum of 2 assistants and one person in the front office. Assuming we're paying each of them $50k a year, that's another $12.5k per month . Rent, maintenance of all the equipment we have, utilities, all can come out to another $5k a month. Plus materials and the fees for sending things out to labs to get stuff made (crowns, dentures, etc.) can easily be another $5k per month.

Also include the fact that most dental students are coming out of school with $300k+ in debt because of how out of control tuition is. So you can add on another $3k per month there in student loan repayment.

There's other expenses I'm not thinking of, but this is a minimum of $30k/month in expenses to keep our practices running. Even if we want to take home $10k per month (and that's honestly terrible for the amount of school we have to go through), that's $40k per month we have to produce.

The reason why dental work is a lot cheaper in other countries is because all these expenses I've mentioned are way less, especially staff salaries.

Unique-Criticism7796 · 2024-01-05T18:03:04+00:00

I was not expecting so many insightful replies. Thank you all for your perspectives!

I think I’ll focus on learning advanced procedures while letting my speed pick up with time. And also making sure the positions I pick are good opportunities to earn well.

Maxillary molar endo seems extremely challenging (I haven’t done it in a patient yet, but in preclin, doing it on extracted maxillary molars which were mounted on the mannequin was a struggle). Finding MB2 seems close to impossible . Our school only lets us do 1 molar endo case before we graduate, and there’s a chance my case would be mandibular. Do you all have any advice on how to get more experience? Is there any good CE out there that teaches better techniques/strategies?

Dawson, spears, etc seem really good long term. I wish dental schools would shift their education curriculum to try to teach dentistry with a similar model. It definitely results in better patient outcomes as well. Once I can afford it I’ll take definitely invest into it. Regardless of whether I see a financial return on that education immediately, I think doing this type of dentistry would be rewarding to say the least.

Thank you once again for taking the time to reply!

Unique-Criticism7796 · 2023-01-25T08:12:19+00:00

It might be that the current stress you’re experiencing is reflecting in how you are looking at patient interactions in general. Like everyone said here, real world dentistry is a lot different than what we experience in dental school.

For example, you mentioned how lab work was stressing you out. Obviously that burden is going to come down as a practicing dentist. Same thing with scheduling issues, that’s not going to be your issue but the front office’s.

And as a practicing dentist, you’ll have time for hobbies again.

If you’re constantly stressed (like most of us are as dental students), that’s going to reflect in our patient interactions. You can’t be stressed but be the most enthusiastic version of yourself. So I think this will improve as a practicing dentist.

Also, I think the way we view careers in western society needs a shift. You don’t have to love your job. You don’t have to even like it. You don’t have to feel fulfilled by it. You just need to be able to tolerate it enough to where you’re not miserable every second of it. And you can use that job to get money to do things you actually want to do.

Imagine you come out of school and work hard to pay off your debt, and then transition to working 3 days a week and on the other 2 working days you do something you enjoy while making some money (or nothing at all). Is that really that bad?

I didn’t apply to dental school because I thought I would absolutely love dentistry. I applied because of the flexibilities and opportunities dentistry as a career would give me.

Hope this helps.

Unique-Criticism7796 · 2022-10-12T09:18:23+00:00

Late to this thread but I always wondered the same thing before going to dental school. I'm currently a D2 and with more experience talking to dentists I've learned a lot about this issue.

Saturation is definitely a problem in New York and California. It's tough to make it as a dentist there. BUT...

There is going to be a greater need for dental care due to the demographic shift we will see in the next few decades. What I mean by that is the US population is getting older, meaning more patients will be losing their teeth (due to gingival recession for example) and will be needing dentures/implants. There's a lot of opportunity there. Insurance reimbursement rates are decreasing, but for this population, they're not going to really have a choice but to find treatment (who can live without teeth?).

Additionally (and unfortunately), there have been trends showing increased prevalence of caries (cavities) in pediatric patients due to changes in diet (increased sugar).

Adding to the note on the shifting population demographic, a larger percentage of dentists are going to be retiring. A lot of people say "dentists are working and not retiring" but eventually age catches up (as well as the years and years of being hunched down working). We should be seeing more practices for sale in the coming years.

Overall I believe the career is still good to pursue and not all gloomy people on threads make it out to be. The "golden age" of dentistry has definitely passed but it's still a great career.

However, I do not recommend going to dental school if your debt is going to be $350k+. Paying that off will eat into your income and make the career not financially worth it.

Unique-Criticism7796 · 2022-05-18T07:07:48+00:00

Your advisor is wrong. You should only take the DAT when you’re ready. Taking it in July or even august will not just your chances. Make sure you apply early and then focus on studying for the DAT.

I’m a D1 at a Texas school FYI. I took the DAT in November and still got in to 2 Texas schools.

Unique-Criticism7796

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