Percentage of production
Paid on what was invoiced. Simple to calculate and popular with associates, but it moves all the collection risk onto the clinic — the dentist is paid whether or not the patient ever pays.
Blog
Paying dentists: commission models that survive a busy month
Every commission argument is really an argument about what counts as revenue. Settle that and the percentage stops mattering so much.
The percentage is the easy part
Clinics spend their negotiating energy on the number and almost none on the definition behind it. Then the first complicated month arrives — a discount, an insurance shortfall, a lab bill, a refund — and it turns out nobody agreed what the percentage applies to.
Thirty per cent of what? Of the invoice, or of what was actually collected? Before the lab bill or after it? Does the associate carry a share of the discount the owner authorised at the desk? What happens when the insurer pays less than approved, four weeks after the dentist was paid?
A clinic that can answer those five questions in writing will have fewer disputes on twenty per cent than a clinic that cannot will have on forty.
The models, and what each one really does
Percentage of collections
Paid on money actually received. Fairer to the clinic and it aligns everyone behind collection, but it delays pay and makes the monthly figure harder to predict.
Per procedure
A fixed rate per treatment type. Very transparent, and useful for specialists and visiting dentists, but it needs maintaining as prices move or it silently drifts.
Base plus commission
A floor with upside above it. Steadier for the dentist, more predictable for the clinic, and usually the easiest to recruit against.
Deductions are where the trust is won or lost
Most commission schemes deduct something before the percentage is applied — lab costs, implant components, orthodontic appliances. This is reasonable. What makes it contentious is when the deduction appears as a single number with no working.
A dentist who can see the lab invoice attached to the case, with the amount and supplier on it, will accept the deduction. The same dentist handed a payslip with "lab: 4,200" and no breakdown will assume the worst, and they will be right often enough to keep assuming it.
The same applies to discounts. If the front desk gives ten per cent to keep a patient happy, somebody absorbs it. Deciding in advance whether that is the clinic or is shared is a two-minute conversation at signing and a two-hour one afterwards.
Pay on a statement, not a number
The practical fix for nearly all of this is to stop delivering commission as a figure and start delivering it as a statement: every treatment in the period, what it invoiced, what was collected against it, what was deducted and why, and the resulting share.
It takes the argument from "this feels low" to "line 14 looks wrong", which is a question with an answer. It also means the calculation is reproducible, which matters the day an associate leaves and wants the last three months checked.
If producing that statement takes a day of somebody’s month in a spreadsheet, it will stop being produced. That is the real reason to have the system calculate it from the invoices and payments it already holds.
Close the month the same way every time
Pick a cut-off and keep it. Treatments completed up to the last day, collections received up to the last day, deductions entered before the run opens — and then the statement is read rather than negotiated. A cut-off that moves to suit a difficult month is the thing associates remember longest.
Publish the figures before payday, not with the payslip. Most disputes are timing rather than arithmetic: a dentist who can see the number mid-month and click into the treatments raises the one genuine error early, and the other four questions answer themselves.
And handle corrections as corrections. A closed run edited in place is a run nobody can reconcile afterwards; an adjustment issued against the month it corrects leaves both numbers intact and the reason visible — which is what you need the day an associate leaves and asks for the last quarter to be checked.
Four cases to settle at signing
The refund. A course refunded in March for work paid out in January has to reverse, and the only version that keeps trust is a visible reversal against the month it is processed in rather than a quiet netting-off against the next run.
The deposit against a treatment plan. Pay on the deposit and the whole course lands in one month, inflating it and leaving two months where the work happens and the commission does not. Pay as sessions are delivered and the figure follows the dentistry.
The insurance shortfall, where the payer approves one amount and remits less weeks later. And the covering dentist, where a treatment is started by one clinician and finished by another — which is only answerable if sessions carry the person who delivered them rather than the patient’s usual dentist.
Where to go next
Questions
Is production or collections better for commission?
Collections aligns the dentist with the clinic on getting paid, which is usually healthier. Production is easier to explain and recruit against. Many clinics use collections with a guaranteed base to soften the timing.
Should lab costs be deducted before commission?
Commonly yes, but only if the dentist can see the underlying lab invoice. An unexplained deduction costs more in trust than it saves in money.
Who absorbs a discount given at the desk?
Decide in advance and write it down. Both answers are defensible; discovering there was no answer at the end of a busy month is not.
Does Dentolize calculate doctor commissions?
Yes. Commission rules are set per doctor and applied to the invoices and payments already in the system, with the deductions itemised rather than summarised.
How often should commission be paid?
Monthly is standard. What matters more than the frequency is that the statement arrives with the payment, so questions are asked while the treatments are still recent.
What happens to commission when a treatment is refunded?
It reverses, against the month the refund is processed in and with the original line left intact. Netting it silently against the next statement is what makes a dentist stop trusting the figure — the number moves and nothing explains why.
See it on your own clinic
Thirty minutes on how your clinic actually runs. We will call you within 24 hours.