7 ms·

Yup. In fact, a great hack is to go to an inexperienced dentist instead of an experienced one for routine work. The reason is that dentists who are fresh out of

Yup. In fact, a great hack is to go to an inexperienced dentist instead of an experienced one for routine work. The reason is that dentists who are fresh out of school are competent enough to do basic cleanings and checkups. But they haven't yet had time to accrete the expensive habits, and the little business optimizations that feed them, that highly-paid professionals often develop. I generally switch dentists every five years or so, and find that cadence works nicely. (Source: a couple of my close friends are dentists and suggested this strategy.)

Scoundreller 4y ago
I think this depends on what the debtload of your area’s new dentists might be like.
- Sebguer 4y ago
  Yeah, this seems like questionably consistent advice, especially in this day and age of endless 'maximize your profit' courses. I'm sure there's plenty of things online on how to extract the most value out of your patients that any inexperienced dentist can use.
- edouard-harris 4y ago
  Interesting point. For whatever it may be worth, I live in Canada, though I don't believe dental school here is especially less expensive than it is in (say) the US.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cardanome 4y ago
Here in Germany it is actually the really old dentists that can be trusted. They were not raised to think business oriented. Though most of them have have retired by now. My old childhood dentist used to do the absolutely necessary. He just cared about keeping my teeth healthy and not putting me under unnecessary stress. He did not even remove my wisdom teeth. When he retired the new doc would simply maximize the amount of procedures. One routine checkup and he would find ten things that needed to be done. What had changed? In Germany doctors used to be basically paid from a fixed budged. In 2007 there was a health care reform changing that. Now they would be paid for individual procedures. So obviously doctors would try to do as much profitable procedures as possibles. The articles misses the target a bit, probably because health care in the US has been run like a business for much longer so it is harder to see the real issue: It is not cultural, it is not some dentists being shady and it can not be fixed by educating dentists. It it the natural result of the incentives that are in place. If you try to run health care like a business you will necessarily and always produce these issues. And this is not dentist specific. Lot's of unnecessary but profitable surgeries are being performed as well.
- cardiffspaceman 4y ago
  Perhaps there is a U-shaped curve with the range being the desirable properties and the domain being years in operation. Young ones can often start with the MBA stuff, and I've experienced MD's who seem like they are about to retire by selling their practice to a whole army of MBA's, but in the meantime they don't just do stuff for the revenue.
- bombcar 4y ago
  The best dentist I ever went to had a picture of his airline pilot wife on the wall - and from how he treated his patients and charged, I got the feeling he worked because he liked to, not because he needed to. However, if you have a "flat fee" dentist/doctor you could be now encouraging the opposite - do the minimum work necessary to get done with the day. It's hard to legislate "be a caring, honest professional" but we can at least remove some of the incentives to not be.
  - cardanome 4y ago
    > However, if you have a "flat fee" dentist/doctor you could be now encouraging the opposite - do the minimum work necessary to get done with the day. It's hard to legislate "be a caring, honest professional" but we can at least remove some of the incentives to not be. First of all, we know that it does not encourage the opposite, see Germany pre 2007 or any other country where where health care is not run like a business but let's look into it in the abstract: Humans love helping other humans. The "be a caring, honest professional" part is a product of intrinsic motivation. The idea that it needs to be externally motivated is extremely harmful. That is not how humans work. Yes, some people get into medicine for the social status, the power or simply money but that is not the majority and we need to a way to filter out those that are full on narcissistic but the vast majority really just wants to help people. > The best dentist I ever went to had a picture of his airline pilot wife on the wall - and from how he treated his patients and charged, I got the feeling he worked because he liked to, not because he needed to. You hit the point here. He doesn't need any external drive to do his best, he just needed the opportunity. It's similar to software developers wanting to write good code. They will strive to do so given the chance and ability even when management discourages and punishes them for that, as is often the case. (Well, "good code" might be subjective but you get the basic idea, humans want to do a good job.)

Scoundreller 4y ago

I think this depends on what the debtload of your area’s new dentists might be like.

Sebguer 4y ago
Yeah, this seems like questionably consistent advice, especially in this day and age of endless 'maximize your profit' courses. I'm sure there's plenty of things online on how to extract the most value out of your patients that any inexperienced dentist can use.
edouard-harris 4y ago
Interesting point. For whatever it may be worth, I live in Canada, though I don't believe dental school here is especially less expensive than it is in (say) the US.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

cardanome 4y ago

Here in Germany it is actually the really old dentists that can be trusted. They were not raised to think business oriented. Though most of them have have retired by now. My old childhood dentist used to do the absolutely necessary. He just cared about keeping my teeth healthy and not putting me under unnecessary stress. He did not even remove my wisdom teeth. When he retired the new doc would simply maximize the amount of procedures. One routine checkup and he would find ten things that needed to be done. What had changed? In Germany doctors used to be basically paid from a fixed budged. In 2007 there was a health care reform changing that. Now they would be paid for individual procedures. So obviously doctors would try to do as much profitable procedures as possibles. The articles misses the target a bit, probably because health care in the US has been run like a business for much longer so it is harder to see the real issue: It is not cultural, it is not some dentists being shady and it can not be fixed by educating dentists. It it the natural result of the incentives that are in place. If you try to run health care like a business you will necessarily and always produce these issues. And this is not dentist specific. Lot's of unnecessary but profitable surgeries are being performed as well.

cardiffspaceman 4y ago
Perhaps there is a U-shaped curve with the range being the desirable properties and the domain being years in operation. Young ones can often start with the MBA stuff, and I've experienced MD's who seem like they are about to retire by selling their practice to a whole army of MBA's, but in the meantime they don't just do stuff for the revenue.
bombcar 4y ago
The best dentist I ever went to had a picture of his airline pilot wife on the wall - and from how he treated his patients and charged, I got the feeling he worked because he liked to, not because he needed to. However, if you have a "flat fee" dentist/doctor you could be now encouraging the opposite - do the minimum work necessary to get done with the day. It's hard to legislate "be a caring, honest professional" but we can at least remove some of the incentives to not be.
- cardanome 4y ago
  > However, if you have a "flat fee" dentist/doctor you could be now encouraging the opposite - do the minimum work necessary to get done with the day. It's hard to legislate "be a caring, honest professional" but we can at least remove some of the incentives to not be. First of all, we know that it does not encourage the opposite, see Germany pre 2007 or any other country where where health care is not run like a business but let's look into it in the abstract: Humans love helping other humans. The "be a caring, honest professional" part is a product of intrinsic motivation. The idea that it needs to be externally motivated is extremely harmful. That is not how humans work. Yes, some people get into medicine for the social status, the power or simply money but that is not the majority and we need to a way to filter out those that are full on narcissistic but the vast majority really just wants to help people. > The best dentist I ever went to had a picture of his airline pilot wife on the wall - and from how he treated his patients and charged, I got the feeling he worked because he liked to, not because he needed to. You hit the point here. He doesn't need any external drive to do his best, he just needed the opportunity. It's similar to software developers wanting to write good code. They will strive to do so given the chance and ability even when management discourages and punishes them for that, as is often the case. (Well, "good code" might be subjective but you get the basic idea, humans want to do a good job.)