Pay yourself from a dental practice without creating a tax problem
Owner compensation, distributions, and the "reasonable salary" test.
The DentalGrind
How a dental practice actually works, taken apart one piece at a time. A free weekly newsletter and podcast for dental students, associates and new owners, from a dentist who owns the practices he writes about.
New: the podcastSeason 1, “Where the money goes,” is recording nowNew in the newsletter
All 32 issues
Dental AI in 2026: The Funding Race Is Over. The Land Grab Has Begun.
Pearl, Overjet and Videa raised the war chests. Now they're racing to wire themselves into every DSO
Why Dentistry Feels Doomed Online and What the Data Actually Says
Reddit says don't do it. The numbers say something more complicated: the problems are real, the conclusion isn't.
From a $500 Corner Drugstore to the World's Largest Dental Distributor: The Henry Schein Story
A pharmacist in Queens, a mail order catalog, and nine decades of compounding growth that ended up stocking most of America's operatories.
Numbers from the archive
Every issue runs on real figures. Here are a few, each linked to the piece that sources it.
30–40%
of each PPO fee written off by in-network practices, on average
The PPO Math No One Shows You at Signing61.9%
median overhead for a general practice, before the owner is paid
The Overhead Truth Your P&L is Hiding$109K
taken by the average dental embezzler before anyone notices
The $109K Employee You Trust the Most90–120
days to get credentialed with each insurer
Credentialing 101: How Insurance Panels Work (and Why They Take Forever)~70%
of one year’s collections is what a typical GP practice sells for
Associate, buy, or build: the decision that's quietly worth millions$312,700
average education debt for indebted dental grads, Class of 2024
What Caused the DSO Boom? The Answer Is Hiding in the Debt Data.
Pick your grit
Six topics, each marked with a grit ring, the color code on the shank of a diamond bur.
The podcast
How a dental practice actually works, one piece at a time.
Same name, same idea, out loud. Season 1 follows a dollar through a dental practice, from the fee on the treatment plan to what the owner actually keeps.
- 15 to 20 minutes
- One part of the practice per episode
- Real numbers from practices Ryan runs
- One thing to check in your own numbers this week
Where the money comes from
Fees, claims and the patients who pay them.
Episode 1: Where a crown fee actually goes
Episode 2: The life of an insurance claim
Episode 3: The PPO math nobody shows you at signing
Episode 4: What a new patient is worth
Where it goes
The schedule, the team and the overhead.
Episode 5: Your schedule is your P&L
Episode 6: Hygiene: profit center or break-even?
Episode 7: The overhead nobody questions
What it adds up to
Careers, valuations and who buys practices.
Episode 8: Associate, buy or build
Episode 9: What a practice is really worth
Episode 10: How private equity buys a practice
Start with the basics
The explainers new dentists ask about most, grouped by the part of the practice they cover.
Run by a dentist who owns the practices he writes about.
The Dental Grind is run by Ryan Smith, DDS, a general dentist who owns and operates dental practices, a dental assisting school, and TheDentalMachine.com, a buying group for dentists. Nobody here is selling you a consulting call. The point is to show how the business works so you can run your own numbers.