Thursday, March 31, 2016

Corperate Dentistry

Since graduating from UCLA in the mid-70s I found Dentistry going through many transformations as far as its delivery of dental care to our patients. In the 70's there was a fear among all private practitioners that HMO style insurance would take over (similar to Kaiser.) That never occurred.  HMOs are still in the 5-6% range of overall Dental Services in our area, primarily PMI for the state, which is a division of Delta Dental. The current challenge in Dentistry is corporate dentistry or DSO's or Dental Service Organizations. These large corporate practices have huge money backing them up and can provide services at decreased costs, but not without risk. While almost every one of my graduating class dreamed of owning their own practice I do believe that percentage is drastically lower today for a variety of reasons and one of them is corporate dentistry. Many of the corporate players are offering different financial packages and continued education opportunities. They are finding ways to reduce staff and doctor turn overs that plagued the industry in the past and corporate dentistry will continue to grow over the next several years because of what I believe are 3 primary reasons.
11.      Generational differences between myself and the new graduates. There are happy just “working for the man” and getting their paid holidays and benefits. They value their time off and do not dream of creating their own “empires.”
22.      My class only had 3 females out of a class of 106. At UCLA in Dr. Naten's class 3 years ago, it was 60% female. Because of differences between men and women dentists which I have blogged about before, women desire to work part time only, for family reasons compared to male dentists and therefore there is a complication in buying their own practices compared to their male counterpart.
33.     Lastly, the debt load of current graduates can be $300,000.00 compared to the $50,000.00 debt load that I had in the 70s. While this may be consistent with the increased costs of housing in that same time frame it certainly is a daunting factor in setting up your own practice.
These three factors will  undoubtedly help corporate dentistry to continue to grow over the next several years.  Hopeful for all of us at private practices, its growth will be limited, and not affect the way we provide services for our patients.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

OPPS!

To all you bloggers!  I just had a patient in today that reminded me why they call my job "Practicing Dentistry".  We did a fairly minor tooth color filling on this patient’s lower right bicuspid to replace an old broken silver filling.  I placed the new filling with no apparent problem but he called up about a month later complaining of recurrent pain with the very same tooth.  He was going to Maui next week and wanted to have it looked at ASAP.  An X-ray quickly showed the problem.  I had a margin problem between the teeth on my brand new tooth colored filling.  Now this reminds me off an old saying of Dr. Jennet's, my operative instructor at UCLA in the early 70's.  One of his favorite sayings was, "The only dentist that never had an overhanging margin, is the dentist that never did a filling."  Much to my dismay, it actually took me 2 additional tries to get the margin down on this extremely interesting situation.  Relying on our radiographs to verify the edges.  And that is indeed why they call my job "Practicing Dentistry."  You never know what is around the next corner or where future surprises may lay.

Friday, March 4, 2016

Dynamic Duo

The other day we had a long time patient “visit” for the prep and impressions of a new crown on a tooth he had broken. He humorously noted that he looked forward to his visit to see how the “dynamic duo” was doing. I rarely have patients come in for treatment with such enthusiasm and friendliness. He obviously made Edison’s and my day. Edison is originally from the Philippines and came to us here in Sacramento after transitioning with his family on Oahu for five years. He then ended up here in Elk Grove. He is actually a dentist in the Philippines and due to the educational cost for retraining here in the states he opted to continue serving the public as an extremely confident RDA in our office for the last 14 years. In a field where most of his contemporaries are female he stands out as an outstanding example of a caring and sympathetic RDA. In fact, in our office of 19 staff members Dr. Naten, Edison and I are the only males which is not typical for most dental offices. However, the way we work together it’s probably the reason for the dynamic duo compliment. We all strive to do the best that we can for our patients and do dentistry to the highest quality standards possible. And with that thought in mind, Edison and I as a "dynamic duo" will go on to service our large family of patients and I do feel that our new name is a compliment of the highest order and we really appreciate it.