£20 for a check up yesterday. took 5 minutes
£32 for a filling today, took 15 minutes

£150 ish per hour aint a bad wage is it? 😐

Slow Friday ton ?

Not sure if it’s true, but it’s a commonly quoted statistic that dentists have the highest suicide rate of any profession.

pricey as a customer, for sure, but I suppose there’s lotsa of expennsive equipment to buy & maintain (yes, yes, including a full set of pro golf clubs 😉 )

… and **** me if you’re not staring into some bastard’s drooling gob all bloody day

They suffer from depression. They all look down in the mouth……

Slow Friday ton ?

mate, i have been laid up for a month, needed to let some steam off.
dentists seemed a easy target……… 😆

but i have to say, my new dentist is very hot attractive.

My old man was an NHS dentist, hated it in the end and took early retirement.

Made his money setting up dental practices and then selling them on, not out of pulling peoples teeth out.

took early retirement.

Sounds ideal!

Sounds ideal!

Yeah, depression and stress are mint.

Er

took early retirement.

Sounds ideal!

So long as mine sorts out the two holes that have appeared in my back teeth…..he can charge what he wants. ……

I’ve been in Africa for a month with sore teeth.

Grrr

How much would YOU charge to look into and have a good poke around your own smelly mouth ???

I don’t know you Ton … you may look like an angel and have a wonderful cleavage to have a quick glance at … but I reckon that’s a fair price ??

They can wear large face masks so not so bad.

Sensible career choice really:

Most dentists are self-employed contractors in general practice, mixing NHS with private work, and earn £50,000 to £110,000. Wholly private dentists can earn £140,000+.

https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/dentist

thinking of a career change Ton?

£30 – £40 per (10-15 min) visit 4 times for the last few months trying to diagnose something but they’re not sure what it is and all looks good on the x-rays they do almost each time. Suggested root canal, which will earn them the best part of £1k with a crown added. Though on hold at the moment as the extreme pain has gone away, but I’m due another £30 trip for a further check up on it next month.

Though hygienist costs more than dentist check up, and I have a fair few of those per year.

100 quid for a check up and clean by an hygenist

Every Dentist I’ve known has been a total caner to deal with the tedium/ stress of the job

A lot of them get back ache as well………

Yes,if you like ripping people of doing unnecessary and expensive work.Then leaving them in pain as you drive of in your cock compensator.Don’t think dentist think business gangster.

That 150 quid has to pay for the receptionist(s), assistants, premises, etc. And downtime between appointments etc.

You’d have to pay me more to go guddling around in the foul-smelling rotten mouths of strangers.

had a few mates that were dentists. All absolutely raked it in. All had a fairly decent vice of some description.

I once heard dentists described as the used car salesmen of the medical world, but having had some painful dental problems last year I’m very glad I have a good one.

yep. Mine charges me far too much to clean my teeth twice a year. However she has fixed all the problems i have had and none have appeared since so I’m very happy to pay the price

A friend of mine is a financial advisor who works mostly with dentists. Based on what I’ve heard… yes!

I really hoped this was going to be about Ton having a mid life crisis and retraining as a dentist.

I used to run 3 dentists and we had a turnover of about 1.8 million over the three practices. most of the revenue was NHS work. Taking direct costs and fixed and variables out each would be aiming to make about £100-120K EBITDA each year from each practice

our dentists were employed not partners and earned a sliding scale salary that started at about £72K. Wholly private practice dentist would expect to clear £80-£100K a year depending if they had specialisms, and their reputation and experience.

Enlighten me. What is stressful about being a dentist? I can understand tedium comment, but stressful, really?

DT, it’s very precise and careful work that is utterly routine and sometimes very dull, with customers who hate you, and don’t want to be there, and will often complain loudly about you personally. There is a constant need to been on a roundabout of skill upgrading, keeping up with best practice and advances that your patients will query you about, quite large medico-legal outlays each year, along with qualifying documentation that costs a bomb.

Oh, and everyone hates you and thinks your job is piss easy, did I mention that?

Ever met a poor dentist (in the money sense, I’ve met lots of bad dentists)? When my last one left his practice, I found it pretty difficult to find one that I could trust, and didn’t want to line his pockets by offering lots of unnecessary treatment. When I asked why the treatment was necessary it was mostly ‘trust me, I’m a dentist’ rather than any good reason. When it got round to asking what I did for a living, I explained my scientific background, and they then at least tried to offer some form of justification, but it was mostly fluster. Eventually found a local experienced chap with his own practice that rubbished what the others had advised.

Not a job that I would want to do, starring into peoples mouths all day.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejJHjfUB23s[/video]

Enlighten me. What is stressful about being a dentist? I can understand tedium comment, but stressful, really?

Non-routine stuff is precision work, that is easy to mess up, which will impact on the welfare of the patient. Sounds stressful. I wouldn’t want to do it. No wonder some are so keen to rip us off.

Ever been to a dentist that isn’t busy? Good profession, if you can stomach it.

Busy doing unnecessary work that is.

nickc – Member

I used to run 3 dentists and we had a turnover of about 1.8 million over the three practices. most of the revenue was NHS work. Taking direct costs and fixed and variables out each would be aiming to make about £100-120K EBITDA each year from each practice

our dentists were employed not partners and earned a sliding scale salary that started at about £72K. Wholly private practice dentist would expect to clear £80-£100K a year depending if they had specialisms, and their reputation and experience.

nickc, would you give us your opinion on dentists that suggest unnecessary work, just to make extra money?

My ex, ex, ex was. Dentist. She worked locum about 3 months a year and spent the rest of the time bumming around the world. She did live very frugally though.

Busy doing unnecessary work that is.

The last dentist I had that I trusted would do my 6 monthly check ups in less than 2 minutes. Didn’t suggest any work unless it was necessary. Found it difficult to find another like that.

nickc, would you give us your opinion on dentists that suggest unnecessary work, just to make extra money?

I’d say it’s rare. It would be more likely that a dentist would try to persuade a patient to have any work outside of “routine” done privately, and even then it’s mostly because they’d have access to better materials, and could take more time. Dentists are regulated heavily by the local commissioning groups, the CQC, their own governing bodies, and have more checks done on them now. Patients are aware more than ever about their rights of redress and complaint. For a practice with a reputation to uphold and patients that can be fickle, and huge amounts of competition it simply isn’t worth trying to earn a few more dollar by doing stuff that isn’t necessary.

Having said all that, I’d not go to a single handed practice (if they still exist) or a to a practice with overwhelmingly elderly dentists. and aim for one in the centre of town, not in a residential side street.

My dad was a dentist. He wanted to be an electrical engineer but his father pointed out there were loads of soon to be demobbed servicemen with relevant skills in engineering so dentistry it was.

He really enjoyed his work. He even got some working holidays in Israel in the 1980s fixing up the teeth of Ethiopian jews who Israel had rescued from the civil war.

He did mainly NHS work but half a day a week private plus the odd out of hours job e.g. airline pilot with toothache who needed it fixing on a Sunday night for a Monday flight.

He made good money but not an excessive amount. He wasn’t generally stressed but did worry about getting arthritis and not being able to work. He owned his practice and employed other dentists. Several of them left and took the list of patients to set up across town, which must have been stressful.

One of the dentists he employed committed suicide – access to drugs makes it easy, so not sure that stress came into it, there was a sex scandal in the mix too.

He retired in his 50s because he wanted to move to Spain. The dentist he sold the practice to was struck off a few years later for performing unnecessary treatments.

One of his best friends was struck off a few years later because he’d continued to practice despite failing eyesight and was screwing things up.

There was some unnecessary treatment but people were struck off when caught, although the system in the 70s was rigged in favour of the dental and medical professions. There was also a culture of not questioning consultants – one at East Grinstead hospital was known to be an alcoholic (i.e. operated when drunk) but no-one could challenge him.

My mate and his wife are dentists (maxfax dentists to be exact) bought thier first practice as soon as they left Med School, bought another about 5 years later, and another and.. well he does maxfax surgery for both NHS & Private whilst she looks after the Practices.. and they’re loaded.
Spent 5 years sailing the world on a 70ft yacht, took kids out of school and private educated both, then put them in private education when they came back 3 years ago.
The Practices are thriving with both Private and NHS patients and his surgery work is going very well indeed.

You’ve just got to be committed and work at your profession..

I wasn’t jealous in the slightest as they slipped thier mooring, heading off into the Solent..
Nope.
Not in the slightest.

I have a private dentist very near where I live and it’s the best choice I ever made in terms of dental care.
Previously I used a local NHS dentist (The fact it was on Butcher Lane in Rothwell should have given a clue) and the quality of care seemed OK, but things were rarely actually fixed for any length of time.
Since going private I have spent a bit more over three years, but much of that has been undoing the effects of Wham bars and growing up in the 80’s and the iffy NHS work I have had done over 30 years. I had a check up today at my private dentist and fully expected a need for a filling or potential root canal. I was advised that it was not needed, but might be in 6-12 months if things didn’t settle down. That’s good advice!

Interesting fact….

Some years ago both Boots and Specsavers moved into dentistry. Both got out completely after a few years after failing to make the expected return on their investment.

The high costs ( each dental chair in a practice might cost 20 grand plus a MONTH to keep the lights on incl. staff, insuarance, materials etc) and risks and massive amount of regulation meant that the profit margin compared to glasses or drugs etc was too small to make it worth continuing. Dentistry has slipped down the leaderboard of high earning professions since the glory days of the 70’s & 80’s

The real high earners in dentistry are successful small business people in the same way that some shop owners or builders or electricians or cleaning agency or hair salon owners are. Sadly you can be a successful small business owner in most other fields without being accused of ripping people off.

Being wrongly thought of in those terms might just add to stress levels along with the stress of doing a precision task on a moving living person, who normally doesn’t want to be there or pay you for doing it, in a time pressured environment where a small slip might cause actual bodily harm. In terms of a purely physical task, brain or vascular surgery isn’t any more demanding dexterity wise.

That’s without adding the normal pressures of business, staff and the fact that you are more likely to be sued in this country than almost anywhere else……..Even the USA although not Israel bizarrely.

My brother has just bought into the practice he worked at – the owner retired and he and the owner’s younger sister bought it.

The practice needs a fair amount of investment, so my brother is skint now. Just having to get a business loan for a new autoclave having taken on a ,massive business mortgage. It will be better once he has things running as he wants, but that will be a few years away.