Today we tackle a taboo topic: MONEY
How much does a dentist really earn if a patient pays, for example, 100 PLN for a service?
What makes up this price?
- Obtaining the professional title of a dentist. Before one becomes a dentist, they must go through many, many years of study and internships.
- Setting up their medical practice. This involves buying or renting a space and adapting it (purchasing equipment).
- A dentist who wants to develop professionally constantly invests to provide the best possible services.
- Depreciation and wear of the equipment on which the dentist works.
- Fixed costs: administrative, treasury, taxes.
- Salaries for staff, paying for the training of the rest of the team.
- Payment for medical training. Believe me, such training for doctors is very, very expensive.
- Payment for materials used in clinics. It's not worth saving on materials; we don't buy cheaper and inferior materials.
- Costs related to marketing services to reach potential patients of our clinic.
- Materials that the patient receives after the visit, such as a folder, a printout of the visit with its description, a schedule of future visits, a bag with hygiene items, or a disc with a recorded image.
- Additional tasks to be done outside the clinic itself, e.g., performing prosthetic work.
All these points contribute to the final amount earned, which is proportional to the responsibility placed on the dentist. Additionally, one must also consider all kinds of corrections, for which, of course, the patient does not pay a second time.
There are also patients who do not show up for a scheduled, previously confirmed appointment. They too, despite their absence, generate costs (the social security payment does not decrease because of this, the clinic's downtime, payment for the time of the employee who is waiting).
Thus, the dentist's earnings are unfortunately only a fraction of the amount the patient leaves for the visit, and this is not due to our ill will but to the system in which we operate.