Are corporate dental offices "to good to be true?"
I have been practicing in my own private office since 1984 and the business has not changed that much with the exception that it seems that insurance companies are facilitating a race to the bottom. New dentists signing up for a plan are told they must accept lower reimbursement schedules. Although dentists are not allowed by the law to set their billing rates with each other, insurance companies can in effect force lower rates for dentists signing up for the first time. Its seems to be a reverse type of "price fixing" scheme. This has the effect of lowering the net profits for dental practices, since after all the overhead bills are paid, what is left over is "profit" that goes to the owner. Traditionally in an owner operated dental office the dentist ended up being paid a percentage of billings. While it used to be common for fee for service dentists to be paid about 40 percent of their profits, most practices have seen the owner / operator's percentage shr