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Professional Courtesy: What's Your Day Worth? by Dr. Thomas Giacobbi

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Categories: Practice Management, HR and Accounting;
Professional Courtesy: What's Your Day Worth?

by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, editorial director

The American Dental Association’s Health Policy Institute has a plethora of interesting data on our profession. Want to see some interesting infographics? Curious about the trends in supply of dentists per 100,000 population? Wondering about access to dental care in your state? You can find the answers to these questions and many more on the ADA website, within the “clinical resources” tab.

This month, I thought it would be fun to pull a couple of data points for a discussion of the relationship between income and work schedule. These data are averages and I realize “your results may vary,” so consider these a starting point for your consideration. To get the most out of this, you should find the corresponding numbers for your practice.

Have you ever sat down to consider the number of days you work in your practice each year? The ADA survey indicates in the year 2000, practice owners worked 1,744 hours (assuming eight-hour days at 218 days per year). In 2019, practice owners worked 1,762 hours (assuming eight-hour days at 220 days per year). For the sake of comparison, a person working a regular five-day workweek with two weeks’ vacation would work 245 days (365 days minus 104 days of weekends, six major holidays and 10 days’ vacation leaves 245 workdays).

Many dentists work four days a week, which would translate to 203 workdays before any vacation is taken (365 days minus 104 days of weekends, six major holidays and 52 weekdays off, equals 203). When you review your own numbers, you might feel a bit lazy, but rest assured, choosing when to work is one of the benefits of ownership.

Let’s take those days worked and determine a value for the income produced when we work (or the income lost when we take a day off). The same survey from the ADA reported the median annual net income of dentists in private practice to be $141,660 in 2000 and $190,000 in 2019. If we divide these income figures by the average days worked, then the income is $650/day in 2000 and $864/day in 2019. As I mentioned, your results will vary, but looking at your take-home income relative to the days you work in the office helps to illustrate your productivity over time and the cost of a “lost day.”
Dentist Income

For example, if you found that in 2019 you worked 200 days and took home $800 a day, and in 2021 you worked 180 days and took home $1,000 a day, you would have the same income with four additional weeks of vacation. Going through this calculation may open your eyes to a decrease in efficiency over time, or it may be another way to set goals for the year ahead. After all, production goals are often nice big numbers, but if they don’t translate to bottom-line income, then you’re simply driving your overhead higher.

Let’s go back to the income/day of $650 in 2000 and $864 in 2019. That initially sounds like a decent increase over time, but it was underwhelming. When we plug it into the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, the buying power of $650 in December 2000 would be $960 in December 2019. This underscores the importance of looking at more than just your total income when you’re setting goals and schedule days for your practice. Please take the time to count the days worked and compare them to your income for the past two full years to establish a baseline. This year will soon be over, and you will have a third data point to add to the chart. The nice thing about this method is it helps take the “COVID-19 effect” out of the mix by only counting days worked in the practice.

Please share your thoughts and comments below. Reach me by email at tom@dentaltown.com.
 

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