u/morningstarprime

Hint, it's on page 4-6 of this document Trends in Dentists' Income, Revenue, and Hours Worked

Based on the ADA survey of dental practice, dentists used to make an inflation-adjusted $274,198 in 2010 and now $215,320 in 2025, over 20% decrease in purchasing power while housing, health insurance, and cost of living continue to climb.

Wanna know why? Dental insurance was designed back in the 70s and usually caps the yearly benefit at around $1,500. Well, that cap hasn't changed in 50 years. If it had tracked inflation, the cap would be $6,000 today. From my actual experience, this cap affects how the patient decides to choose your service. Back then $1,500 means a lot of procedures can be done.

Now, let's look at other professions like nursing. Nurses have labor unions, and hospital networks can absorb operational shock when staff demands higher pay. Dentistry and being a small business owner, there's no regulation or incentive for the insurance to reimburse more (and most insurances like Dental Dental haven't increased their reimbursements for more than 1-2 decades; if anything they have DECREASED). If Blue Cross refuses to raise reimbursement rates, the hospital threatens to pull an entire region's emergency rooms out-of-network. Dentists don't have that leverage. Oh also don't forget about the increase in staff and material costs as a dentist, which has exploded over the years (just look at page 10).

For you guys, the conclusion in all of this to me isn't to not become a dentist but to realize that dentistry is just like any other commodity or product. You need to do your INDEPENDENT research before buying, and I'm not talking about just focusing on DAT or GPA. You don't go into a BMW dealership and blindly finance a car at 8% interest just because those guys (ADCOMS) look professional, have all these official buildings/certifications and everyone (your classmates and people in this sub) is doing it so you think you must end up fine too just like the herd. Just like dealerships, investment advisors, and your career - you need to be realistic and spend more time to personally understand what you're going into. Gluck

Based on this article, Trends in Dentists' Income, Revenue, and Hours Worked, it appears that the inflation-adjusted salary for dentistry has steadily gone down over the last 15 years (page 4-6). The salary for most other healthcare professions seems to either go up with inflation or manage to keep pace with it. The craziest part is that right now, with all the Delta Dental squeeze and other insurances refusing to increase reimbursements, add that to increasing material and staff expenses, dentistry seems to be a career with little salary progression.

Yes, there are ways for dentists to adapt. However, I'm just talking about the natural salary progression, not ways to increase it by being more productive, doing more specialty procedures etc. Just apples-to-apples comparison. A nurse working a set 32 hours a week will see substantial salary increases in 10 years, while a dentist with the same set hours will possibly make less both nominally and inflation-adjusted (higher overhead, low insurance reimbursement rates). My healthcare costs skyrocketed over the past 5 years, while my nominal income hasn't increased materially in that timeframe. Thoughts?

I recently had a newborn and was asking about ways to be environmentally more conscious/concerned about the environmental impact of single baby products etc. I was met with, let's just say less than polite replies that I should have thought about this before having a kid 9 months ago and replies saying why they won't have kids - completely off topic stuff and berating me about my decision.

I was absolutely appalled by this. Is it the anonymity of the internet? or is it an echo chamber of certain subreddits? Just want to hear your opinions. Thank you

Hey everyone, first time dad here. My daughter was born last Monday, so we are about 11 days in. I want to preface this by saying I love her to death and I was aware that it would be a lot of work. That being said though, the reality of the lifestyle change has honestly hit me like a ton of bricks. The shock of the new routine is surreal with sleeping in blocks and late night/morning shifts between me and my wife.

It feels really weird to be wide awake in a completely silent house, washing bottles and burping a baby. And there's no interaction with the outside world - we don't really go out at all as expected. I’m a dentist, so in my normal day it's structured, fast paced, and a lot of interaction. Not to sound like a captain obvious here, but going from that to this quiet, repetitive shift work just made it feel very.... out of place?

I’m not depressed, my wife is doing okay (though the endless cycle of washing bottles and laundry is exhausting for both of us). IMO it’s actually nice to be away from the high stress of work. But the day to day lifestyle flip has just shocked my system more than I initially expected. Did anyone else experience this weird sense of isolation or whiplash in the first two weeks? How long did it take for the new normal to actually feel normal? Thank you.

EDIT: Thanks so much for the positive replies guys. Nice to see that I'm not the only one here going through this lol

Hi everyone, I recently gave birth to my daughter, and she's the light of my life. I'm trying my best to utilize only products that are sustainable, avoiding and single use items and limiting mine and her footprint as much as possible. Even with me consciously doing this, it's inevitable that certain items are just made out of non-reusable material. To think that babies go through more than 5,000 diapers on just one baby for households that just use regular Pampers/Huggies brands is scary and depressing to me. I often find myself spiraling over the bigger picture - what about the billions of other people who aren't aware, don't care, or simply can't afford to do their part?

It really worries me. About the world we're heading into. About the world she's going to grow up with. Microplastic, pollution, you name it. This can't be sustainable if we had a time machine to look into the future 300 years from now. Philosophically, why does it matter if our kids have good future careers or what they decide to do etc when the planet seems to be going up in flames? To those who have more knowledge than me regarding climate change and all the negative effects of consumption, what do you think? Is there hope?

Hi everyone, first time here with California EDD/SDI. My wife has been off work since may 5th due to pregnancy and filed her claim a week-ish later like the website recommended on may 15th. She has her medical certification and coordinated with Kaiser internal portal etc.

Now on the EDD website it said “we’re processing your claim” and has been stuck there since. Is this normal to wait this long? She has been off of work for more than a month and still not getting her disability pay?