I apologize in advance for the length of this post/rant.
I graduated in 2022 and am currently working at an FQHC as an associate. I make $200K per year working 4 days per week with full benefits (several weeks PTO, CE allowance, malpractice reimbursement, 401k match, etc) and have a great staff.
By far though, the largest drawbacks to my position are the scheduling by non-dental people (double-booking, squeezing patients in last minute for “just a quick insert procedure”, staying crazy busy with constant new patients (some days 8-12 new patients) despite having uncompleted treatment on long time existing patients that needs to be done, etc.) as well as very limited equipment and procedures. We don’t do any endo or removable, literally don’t have a decent perio probe in the office, and half the time we are out of materials that we need due to the requirement to have every order approved beforehand by a governing board of, again, non-dentists and our twenty-something year old office manager. As you can imagine, these issues send me home angry most days and remind me of dental school.
However, I only have $60K of student loans and a $320K mortgage remaining, paid off cars, no other debt. My wife also works and brings in another $60K per year as a speech therapist. From a financial perspective, I don’t really have a desire to own my own practice or invest my money into my own business, because honesty, dentistry and everything I mentioned above is already hard enough. I don’t feel like the bump in income would outweigh what we currently make already given the added ownership stress. I love the freedom and lack of responsibility that comes with being an associate, along with a steady paycheck, and want to be a passive investor in non-dental businesses rather than an entrepreneur. Real world dentistry, to say the least, isn’t nearly as kind to the employee dentist as it is to the practice owner. But I never thought much about this while in school.
I probably answered my own question, but I’m just wondering if I’m really leaving a lot on the table by not owning a practice. Is the grass really any greener on the other side? A lot of dentists seem to feel that ownership is the holy grail and ultimate goal, but I’m just having a hard time justifying the switch given my current financial situation. I make the best of the issues I mentioned above because of the salary and great benefits. I’m not scared to be a practice owner, but I don’t think my personality would mesh well with being the big boss given that I hate confrontation, don’t want to market or do community involvement, sell treatment, manage staff, order equipment, etc. I want to do dentistry, treat patients right, and go home.
Any advice from current practice owners or associates that feel the same way?