{
  "slug": "dental-practice-hourly-production",
  "title": "Dental Practice Hourly Production Calculator",
  "heading": "Dental Hourly Production Calculator",
  "category": "financial",
  "url": "https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/dental-practice-hourly-production",
  "summary": "Turn daily dental production into an hourly rate and compare it against chair overhead cost.",
  "description": "Dental practices are typically evaluated on production per hour of chair time, since that's the resource that's actually scarce — not the dentist's calendar, but the operatory-hours available in a day. This calculator converts your daily or weekly production into an hourly figure, then compares it to your practice's hourly overhead cost per chair to show true margin per clinical hour. It's the number that should drive decisions about adding a hygienist, extending hours, or dropping a low-paying PPO plan. National benchmarks put general dentistry production at $400-$700 per hour and specialty (endo, oral surgery, ortho) meaningfully higher, but the number that matters is your own overhead-adjusted figure, since a $600/hour production day with $450/hour overhead nets far less than the raw number suggests.",
  "formula": "Hourly production = total production ÷ clinical hours; margin per hour = hourly production − hourly overhead cost per chair.",
  "dateModified": "2026-09-30",
  "run_url": "https://www.revenuelab.fyi/api/public/calc?tool=dental-practice-hourly-production",
  "inputs": [
    {
      "id": "dailyProduction",
      "label": "Daily production",
      "kind": "number",
      "hint": null,
      "default": 4200,
      "unit": "$",
      "min": 0,
      "max": null
    },
    {
      "id": "clinicalHours",
      "label": "Clinical hours per day",
      "kind": "number",
      "hint": null,
      "default": 8,
      "unit": null,
      "min": 1,
      "max": 16
    },
    {
      "id": "monthlyOverhead",
      "label": "Monthly practice overhead",
      "kind": "number",
      "hint": null,
      "default": 55000,
      "unit": "$",
      "min": 0,
      "max": null
    },
    {
      "id": "workDaysMonth",
      "label": "Clinical days per month",
      "kind": "number",
      "hint": null,
      "default": 20,
      "unit": null,
      "min": 1,
      "max": 31
    },
    {
      "id": "collectionRate",
      "label": "Collection rate (% of production collected)",
      "kind": "number",
      "hint": null,
      "default": 96,
      "unit": "%",
      "min": 0,
      "max": 100
    }
  ],
  "outputs": [
    {
      "id": "hourly",
      "label": "Production per clinical hour",
      "format": "currency",
      "hint": null,
      "primary": true
    },
    {
      "id": "overheadHourly",
      "label": "Overhead cost per clinical hour",
      "format": "currency",
      "hint": null,
      "primary": false
    },
    {
      "id": "marginHourly",
      "label": "Margin per hour (production basis)",
      "format": "currency",
      "hint": null,
      "primary": false
    },
    {
      "id": "collected",
      "label": "Collected revenue per hour",
      "format": "currency",
      "hint": null,
      "primary": false
    },
    {
      "id": "marginCollected",
      "label": "Margin per hour (collections basis)",
      "format": "currency",
      "hint": null,
      "primary": false
    }
  ],
  "worked_example": {
    "inputs": [
      "Daily production: 4200 $",
      "Clinical hours per day: 8",
      "Monthly practice overhead: 55000 $",
      "Clinical days per month: 20",
      "Collection rate (% of production collected): 96 %"
    ],
    "outputs": [
      "Production per clinical hour: $525",
      "Overhead cost per clinical hour: $344",
      "Margin per hour (production basis): $181",
      "Collected revenue per hour: $504",
      "Margin per hour (collections basis): $160"
    ]
  },
  "how_to": {
    "title": "How to use this",
    "steps": [
      "Enter daily production ($).",
      "Enter clinical hours per day.",
      "Enter monthly practice overhead ($).",
      "Enter clinical days per month.",
      "Enter collection rate (% of production collected) (%).",
      "Read your production per clinical hour on the right — it updates as you type.",
      "Hit Share to keep the scenario or send it to someone."
    ]
  },
  "scenarios": [
    {
      "name": "Conservative",
      "description": "Lower-end numbers — what if things land soft?",
      "values": {
        "dailyProduction": 2500,
        "clinicalHours": 4.8,
        "monthlyOverhead": 33000,
        "workDaysMonth": 12,
        "collectionRate": 58
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "Typical",
      "description": "Defaults — the most common real-world setup.",
      "values": {
        "dailyProduction": 4200,
        "clinicalHours": 8,
        "monthlyOverhead": 55000,
        "workDaysMonth": 20,
        "collectionRate": 96
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "Ambitious",
      "description": "Higher-end numbers — what if things really pop?",
      "values": {
        "dailyProduction": 6700,
        "clinicalHours": 12.8,
        "monthlyOverhead": 88000,
        "workDaysMonth": 31,
        "collectionRate": 100
      }
    }
  ],
  "limitations": [
    "Results are estimates before tax, fees, and inflation unless an input explicitly covers them.",
    "Rates are treated as fixed for the whole period — variable-rate products will drift from this projection.",
    "This is educational maths, not financial advice. Check anything contractual with the lender or your accountant."
  ],
  "faq": [
    {
      "q": "What's a good production per hour for general dentistry?",
      "a": "Most benchmarking data (Dental Economics, Levin Group) puts solo general dentistry between $400 and $700 per hour depending on region and case mix, with hygiene-heavy schedules on the lower end and restorative/cosmetic-heavy schedules higher. Multi-provider practices with associate dentists average lower per-provider figures."
    },
    {
      "q": "Why use collections instead of production for the real margin?",
      "a": "Production is what you bill; collections is what actually lands in the bank after insurance write-offs, adjustments, and unpaid patient balances. A practice heavy in PPO contracts might produce $650/hour but only collect $520/hour after contractual write-offs, which is the number that should drive overhead decisions."
    },
    {
      "q": "How do I use this to evaluate dropping a PPO plan?",
      "a": "Compare your average hourly production doing PPO patients against fee-for-service or a higher-paying plan for the same procedure mix. If PPO patients fill otherwise-empty chair time at positive margin, keep them; if they're displacing higher-paying patients, the math usually favors renegotiating or dropping the plan."
    },
    {
      "q": "Does adding a second chair or hygienist change this calculation?",
      "a": "Yes — added capacity spreads fixed overhead (rent, front desk, equipment) across more clinical hours, which lowers overhead cost per hour and improves margin, as long as you can actually fill the added hours with patients."
    }
  ],
  "related": [
    "https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/medical-practice-cost-per-visit",
    "https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/therapy-private-pay-vs-insurance"
  ],
  "license": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "citation": "RevenueLab — Dental Practice Hourly Production Calculator (https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/dental-practice-hourly-production)"
}