Well. Vets start at £22k, dentists at £28k. Both take the same amount of time to get qualified.
After the first year virtually all dentist who don't work for one of those.... hmmm, how are they best described?.... corporate bodies (Oasis and the like) are paid by work they do.
Basically, you do an exam, you get money to that.
Each item of service has an amount, banded in the NHS, per item usually in the PVT world, banded for Denplan etc. At teh end of the month, Mr Principal dentists divides the months loot.
Usually you take the gross amount you earn, subtract any labbills, and equipments costs, and other running costs, then divide by the percentage in your contract. This will vary from 30%-50%.
An hourly rate of £125 (more than I manage by quite a bit, but seems to be what people attain in England, I am not quite sure how) an hour, pushed solidly for an entire year, might end up witha gross income to the practice of £200,000 a year, knock of the bills, and the split, you could be taking home anywhere from £42K to £70K a year depending on your split percentage.
We're self-employed, even if working for a Principal, so tax is paid twice a year to HMRC. At £70 an associate will have already blasted all their expenses in the split, so can expect to pay maybe 24K/25K in tax. So maybe a monthly takehome equivalent of between £2800 to £3800 even though they earned £125 an hour, as in their patients paid that much per hour on average.
As a comparison, in Northern Ireland (we're not banded), on the NHS, two small radiographs of your teeth will cost you £5. A big film going around the head costs around £10. A checkup and full scaling costs £17ish. You tend to take radiographs every two to three years assuming nothing is wrong. So 4 checkups an hour, 15 minutes a person to allow time for cleaning, updating medical histories etc, one of them would be due radiographs on average, would net you less than £75, significantly under this £125 figure I stated earlier. NHS fees cannot be altered, even items with labbills attached even if the lab costs goes up. In the past ten years the cost of a gold crown has went up by around 10% in the fees, the labbill has close to tripled. Some things are not profitable, but have to be offered if you want to comply with your TOS.
There is no holiday pay, there is no sick pay, if you miss a day like anyone else self-employed you earn nothing. Some places will charge an assoicate a running cost for days they are off, as the practice is still running. Its not a moan, its just the way things are and always have been. Anyway its a little bit of background for people.
Main costs with vets is often they need a GA to radiograph properly which adds dramatically to the cost. The films will be bigger, as in the development surface will be bigger to accomodate all creatures, be it digital or not.
) and also one of the highest suicide rates (combination of long hours, under pressure, seeing animals suffer and having to put them down and easy access to quick, painfree suicide drugs)
