Faking it

At the place where I'm renting space, I've been helping out with billing when I'm not seeing patients.

Its a test of patience. I've been learning that insurance seriously screws us over more than I thought. On the patient's side, there are always additional costs: increasing % responsible, increasing deductable limits, and the same coverage cap since the 1970's. On our end, we doctors get paid way less each year.

I'm not going to get myself in trouble by stating the actual amounts in question ("confidential" according to the insurance companies), but it's sometimes as stupid as 30% reimbursement or nothing.

Moreover, the music is driving me nuts!

I really, really can't stand the muzak that is playing down here. As a jazz, R and B, rock, indie, (anything but muzak), it's pure torture to listen to the Chipmunks Christmas carol play every five songs. It's pure smaltz with a double dose high fructose syrup.

While I can't do too much about the ripoff known as insurance, I will try to have music that doesn't suck.

Buying my first practice

For the past 18 months, I've been working as an associate under the pay as an "independent operator."

Essentially, this means that I'm working much harder for far less pay, relatively little control over quality control, and I'm taxed twice thanks to Obama. I've found many, many taxes that I have to pay on many levels that I never knew existed.

On the plus side, this has slowly taught me to think like a businessman. I've learned to think as not only a dentist, but also a receptionist, office manager, assistant, and accountant. I've learned about quality, profitability, and the concept of working capital, as I've scraped by from check to bill, to student loan.

It's about time for me to buy a practice and make it official.
I am a dentist. Hear me squeak.

Gypsy dentist

Thanksgiving is a nice little sanctuary from the happenings of everything. It's a nice time to enjoy family, friends, good food (hopefully), and reflect of things to be thankful about.

The day after Thanksgiving is another matter.

For me, it's not about black friday, shopping, or the like. Rather, it's a time for me to consider the state of life as a new dentist: bills, student loans, and the pressing need for more work.

I've come to realize that I'll be living like a gypsy for the next year.

Between looking for work, driving to work, and working in different cities each day of the week (if I find more work), I can feel more than a bit of a connection with the Tinkerers, the Romas of yesteryear.

In that spirit, I'm going to build myself a damn good guitar for the road.
I'll keep you posted as I build up my workshop and get the tools that I need.

Mise en Place

Today at church, I had the strange vision to develop a cooking class to equip fellow servants of the Lord.

As I mulled over the truly important things, it made me think of dentistry: particularly mise en place...or to have everything in the right place.

Like a chef, a dentist should have everything well organized, and in it's proper place.
The burs should be arrayed in a logical fashion. The handpeices should be polished and oiled.
The lab area should be clean. The chairs should be spotless.

Controlled messiness is fine. Disorder and slop is unacceptable.

Anyways, that's my take on things.

-Matt

Chocolate - is it wrong?

I've recently become very interested in the possibility of making my own chocolate truffles.

I'm not too satisfied with most of what I can afford, and the boutique chocolates available are too expensive for my paltry, student-loan riddled pocket book.

Anyways, I'm not sure if it'd be totally wrong...but I'm really tempted to give it a try.

Please let me know what you think!

My obsession with beauty

I wish I wasn't obsessed with beauty.

The thing with dentistry, is that I think it's really important to have a good idea of beauty.
With so much flim flam, I believe that understanding the basic tenets of beauty is very valuable for my patients.

After all, I'm in the business of making people feel beautiful.

In my obsessive self-quest, I've met many pretty people and truly beautiful people as well.
I've seen countless masterpieces of art. I've handled and made a few myself.

Beauty is perfection.
Perfection is attained by perfect practice.
Perfect practice is by carefully measuring results, calibrating and removing sources of error.

If this sounds like drudgery, it sort of is.
However, I think that this is a worthy price for my patients.

-Matt

ps. Hopefully, I'll get a decent camera sometime in 2011 to show you what I mean.
I stopped taking photos, as they don't do justice to the subject.

Why I haven't been posting

Dear readers,

My apologies for not posting much the past several months.
I've been working on the job search, and recently been a bit unmotivated.

I've learned that DentiCal creates a certain mentality and a certain lack of gratitude.
Even with the 25% chance of reimbursement, even with the 20% reimbursement of fees, even with putting up with a higher chance of getting sued--I have to deal with patients that can't be bothered. It's been a bit upsetting, so I've been focusing my attention on other things like spending time with friends, and learning to be a normal 27 year old.

Nevertheless, I really love dentistry.

Even with everything that sucks about dentistry, I can't help but love it.
It's like the chef with scarred and pitted hands.
I know of no other profession where I can be constantly challenged with getting better, where I'm paid to make friends, and where I can be paid to treat people like family.

I was chatting with Dr. Li at the Berkeley Free Clinic.
We agreed that reimbursements are down. Overhead is up. Our staff drive better cars than we do. However, the trust that we receive from our patients is sacred and beautiful.

And I wouldn't trade it for all the money in the world.
But we wouldn't trade this