Full transcript of “The Truth About High-Income Dentistry No One Talks About”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 Whenever I post my cases on YouTube or Instagram, the number one question I get asked is, "Can you make a lot of money in dentistry without being a super GP?" If you don't know what that is, that's a dentist who does a wide range of specialty procedures. We're talking dental implants, molaroo canals, clear liners, wisdom teeth extractions, pediatric dentistry. All of this is a lot to learn. And yes, those specialists make a lot of money. But can you make that kind of money without doing just specialty work? So, in this video today, I will explain to you an easier path. I've seen it from several people in my life on how to make a high income in dentistry without having to be a super GP. And I definitely know what I'm talking about because I made over $300,000 in my first year out of dental
0:47 school. And I didn't do any of those complex procedures. Let's get right into it. Now, I used to think it was a requirement for a general dentist to become a super GP to hit the really high specialist salary numbers until I graduated and I went into the workforce and I saw what was possible. People doing bread and butter basic ass dentistry and still pulling in 300 $400,000. So, the first and easiest way to do this if you're broke or you're just about to graduate is just to move. The further you get away from a major city, the more money you'll make. So, I left Manhattan right after graduating dental school from NYU. A really high demand, saturated area to a really low saturated, high demand area. And I really believe that was the main reason
1:33 I was able to make 300 grand as a new grad dentist. I wasn't doing anything fancy, guys. No full surgeries, no ridiculous wisdom teeth, just extractions, crowns, bridges, and dentures, which also is another way to make a higher income is if you go corporate. But the corporate offices are optimized for maximizing the doctor's time. That way, you're efficient and you're able to make real money. But when I tried to work in Bickl, Miami, I had the exact opposite experience. I was hunting for decay in the population. A buckle filling there, maybe an M mo there. patients took great care of their teeth, had no decay, and I was working for a $500 daily guarantee because I wanted the clout of being like a Miami dentist, which is all a facade. If you
2:20 need more money or you need more opportunity, pack up and move. It helps with every part of the growing process. Number two, speed in high income earning dentistry is your best friend. If you want to make money without doing really complex procedures, you got to be fast. It used to take me 35, 45 minutes to do a crown. Then I saw my senior doc do it in like 5 minutes. I was like, whoa. That changed my whole mindset of what could be done faster. I'm not saying do shitty dentistry. I'm saying learn to find ways to make your efficiency better. For me, the secret was using bigger burrs. Now I use a bur that's 2 mm thick. I'm able to go around the tooth in much fewer swipes. No stopping, no second guessing. I don't let my hand
3:05 off the pedal too often cuz I know in school they take they teach you to triple check everything, right? Dry the prep, look at the mirror, look at it from a different angle in the mirror, change your taper when you're coming around the like, no, learn to stop secondguessing yourself and move more effectively around your preps. And now I can cut a crown in 6, 7 minutes. And if you didn't know, crowns are the most lucrative procedure in dentistry. The ROI on a crown is ridiculous. Our zirconia pucks are 50 bucks and they make 25 crowns that you can charge up at least $1,000 for a crown. Pretty high ROI. Number three, delegate or die trying. If you want to make more money, do less. Delegate everything that doesn't directly produce revenue. Packing cords, scanning temps. I have my assistants pretty much
3:52 doing all that stuff for me. So, I can do higher level executive tasks like cutting a tooth for a crown. Assistant can't do that, but I can. This is how you maximize your efficiency in the office. Plus, my assistants can pack core better than I can. I'm not afraid to say that because they do this all day. It's just like a hygienist. Some patients come to me saying, "Oh, I want the dentist to clean my teeth." The hygienist only cleans teeth all day, every day of his or her life. Why wouldn't you want somebody like that? This is how you can effectively scale your operations. Number four, what I've learned is that insurance is the absolute enemy. It is the bane of our existence as dentists. Insurance companies will make you feel worthless and they'll deny your claims and they'll slash the reimbursements and they'll constantly just try to devalue your
4:37 time. This has happened to me and it's a game that we all have to get out of as quick as we possibly can. Like I'm doing a surgery, I'm flapping gums open. I'm drilling bone and they're paying me $40. I just paid $400 for my girl's haircut. Something with insurance doesn't make sense here. What I've learned is that the faster we get off of insuranceances, the faster you're able to build wealth much easier. You don't need to learn sinus lifts or really advanced cosmetic dentistry. But if you can charge the proper prices for what you already do, I think that's a great way to maximize your income and get out of debt. You know, if you're in a place like Louisville, Kentucky, where nobody has insurance, guess what? You're able to set the prices. You can charge that $400 cash. Hence the first point of moving to a location not as desirable. You don't
5:23 have to pay that 60% write- off. That $400 can be straight cash into your profit without having a middleman choosing your pricing. Now, compare that with LA and New York overrun with dentists. Even in Miami, every block has a dentist. Everybody takes every type of insurance. And the patients are only going to go to those dentists who take their insurance. Which means that everybody must now play the game in a race to the bottom. taking every insurance using their fees which are getting lower every year in a saturated market doesn't make sense for the future of dentists around the country. And number five is something that I think about more and more every day is that ownership is the game that we should all be in. You may not have to be a super GP, but definitely owning an office of
6:08 your own is the right answer. the write-offs that you can use on your taxes, the way you can make passive, I say passive, but you're able to make some passive income as well, like off of your hygiene department. Hygiene is an excellent way for a general dentist to make passive income. My Aspen office was doing 60 70k a month in hygiene. Partly because they were using arrested on literally every person from the age of 1 to 100, the hygiene department was very profitable. I used to think being as an associate ah I just get 30% of all the revenue but as an owner you're getting 100% of the revenue minus the overhead like the staff costs and lab bills. The owners are always taking home more because even the advantages of writing off business expenses and even getting the full autonomy of your schedule. It really reduces the idea of becoming a
6:54 super GP or learning a bunch of extrrenuous procedures just to make a high salary. And it's what I'm looking into now. I feel like I just make too much money from my boss and I want more control over my own career. And as you get older in dentistry, what I'm realizing is that the opportunity cost of being an associate just gets higher and higher and higher because you're losing on the ability of becoming an owner. And currently today, I am building somebody else's dream. I don't exactly vibe with. So, in conclusion, I don't think you need to be a super GP to make a great living in dentistry. I have tons of friends doing bread and butter. easy 9 to4 few days a week and they're making a killing but they're doing one of these components that I've listed out for you. They may have moved far away into more rural areas. They may have
7:41 owned their own office. They may not take any more insuranceances. I hope you learned something in this video because I always enjoy making these videos. So, please hit that like button, subscribe, share, and don't forget to join that school community that we're trying to start, but I'm so busy with work I have no time for it. But eventually it'll come where we can all learn and grow together. Great seeing y'all. Hope y'all like the vlog content and everything else I've been putting out. Drop some comments. Let me know you guys are interested. It keeps me motivated to make more videos the more you engage with the videos and engage with the algorithm. Take care. See y'all next time.
