Getting An Idea Of The Dental Assistant Pay Scale

Before deciding on a career field, many people prefer to find out more about the possible pay scale in order to make sure that the pay that they will receive will be enough to meet their needs. The many openings for dental assistants mean that more people are going to want to get into this career field.

As with all careers, the Dental Assistant Pay Scale varies based on a number of different factors. Things that can affect the likelihood of getting a job and the rate of pay that a person receives include the level of training, certification status, amount of experience, and the area of the country where a dental assistant works.

Dental assistants might start work with basically no special training, a certificate or diploma, or an associates degree. A higher level of training is likely to be rewarded with a greater opportunity for getting a job, and possibly with a higher starting salary as well. The opportunities to get a job with no training are very few and far between these days, and are definitely sure to pay less than opportunities for those who have already been trained when they can be found.

Certification shows that you have completed a certain level of training and passed an exam to prove that you are conversant in all the necessary skills that are required for a position as a dental assistant. Those with certification are preferred by those who hire for these positions. Those with certifications are likely to get a higher rate on the Dental Assistant Pay Scale.

One of the surefire ways to get toward the higher end of the Dental Assistant Pay Scale is to get more experience. According to PayScale, a dental assistant with less than one year of experience makes a median hourly rate of $11.34. Compare that to the median hourly rate of $17.45 for a dental assistant with more than 20 years of experience and you can see that experience really does pay.

Some areas of the country have a higher Dental Assistant Pay Scale than others. However, when you consider this, you need to also make sure to take into consideration the cost of living in these areas to make sure that whatever pay you would receive there would really translate into more buying power.

The states that have the highest salaries for people in this career are District of Columbia, Alaska, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Massachusetts. The major metropolitan areas with the highest dental assistant pay rates are Framingham, MA; Santa Rosa-Petaluma, CA; Manchester, NH; San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, CA; and Rochester, MN.