Dental Assistant Salary: Factors Affecting Dental Assistant Pay
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Is the dental assistant salary rewarding enough to pursue a career in this field?
An entry-level dental assistant's work is simple. It involves patient care, office work and assisting the dentist during procedures. Your main responsibilities mostly have to do with preparing the patient for treatment, readying the equipment to be used for the procedures, filling in patient records and other documentation, and actually helping out the dentist while he attends to a patient.
Factors affecting your pay
For these tasks you can expect an average dental assistant salary between 11 dollars to 19 dollars an hour. Your experience will spell the difference if your rate will go higher in the future. And the more tasks you perform at the workplace, the more responsibilities you take on, the better your chances for a raise.
Aside from experience, other factors affecting the dental assistant pay are:
Location - Where you live and work dictates the range of pay for the kind of work you do. In general, where the cost of living is high, you can expect to be paid more.
In 2008, the median dental assistant salary was pegged at $32,380 annually. The lowest earned was $22,270, while those who earned most took home $46,150.
The two states that paid their dental assistants the highest salaries were Alaska ($40,450) and the District of Columbia ($40,190).
Workplace - Majority of dental assistants are employed in dental clinics or by licensed dentists with private practice. In 2007, the average hourly rate was $15.52 for those working in these places. But it was also noted that those employed by specialty hospitals received $16.57 an hour on average for their services.
Type of employment - Your salary will also be different if you work as a part-time or full-time employee. Your level of experience may be considered in determining how much you make, even if you only work part-time. On the other hand, you stand to receive other benefits if you report to work full time.
Room for growth
Dental assistant careers have little room for growth without further education. It is an advantage to have started out with formal training or if you completed a Red Cross dental assistant training, since employers put a premium on this kind of certification.
After gaining some experience as entry-level dental assistant, you may want to take up further studies to become an expanded functions dental assistant to take on more responsibilities in the work place.
Others also consider becoming a dental hygienist, which performs more technical functions in dental clinics, without being supervised by a dentist. Naturally, the salary for this occupation is much more competitive.
While it may make a difference what college you earned your training, but what will ultimately spell your success in the field of dental assisting is your commitment to the profession. The reward will come in the form of a lucrative dental assistant salary.
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