There are no hygienists in an orthodontic office: the team is assistants, a treatment coordinator paid on case starts, and a doctor paid by the day on money collected over a two-year contract. WageTime runs that payroll as configuration, not a monthly reconciliation.
The US has about 10,900 practicing orthodontists, and the office that supports one runs on a payroll no general dentist would recognize (KFF / ADA). Most treatment is a case sold once and collected over 12 to 24 months, the team is small and mostly clinical assistants, and the person running payroll reconciles case-start bonuses, day rates, and travel between offices by hand every payday.
Your treatment coordinator is hourly plus a bonus on every case she starts, and the start count comes off a practice-management report into a spreadsheet, then gets re-typed into payroll. Change the bonus per start, add a second coordinator, or run the month on collected contracts instead of production, and the whole calculation is rebuilt by hand, with the conversion number nobody double-checks until the doctor asks.
An orthodontist is hard to pay on attributable production, so the doctor runs on a day rate, often a daily guarantee versus a percentage of collections, whichever is greater. Someone has to count clinical days, compare the guarantee against the percentage, and settle the difference, and on a light day the day rate still has to clear minimum wage for the hours actually worked.
There is no hygienist here, so the credential shoebox looks different: the orthodontic-assistant permit, the expanded-function cert, the radiography card, the doctor’s license and DEA, and everyone’s CPR all renew on separate dates. Today that lives on a sticky note, and a permit worked past its expiration is a licensing-board problem, discovered the week the renewal was already due.
The doctor rotates between the main office and a satellite or two, the assistants and coordinator travel along, and one or two staff are based at each location. Run that in a small-business payroll tool and you can’t see what any single office costs in labor, the traveling assistant gets booked in two places at once, and the Saturday clinic’s differential is a manual adjustment.
The practice hits its monthly starts goal, so the whole team earns a bonus, but you can only pay it on collected revenue, not billed production. Splitting the pool, running it on the right check, and getting the supplemental-wage withholding right turns a good month into an off-cycle payroll project.
The way the team is actually built: hourly clinical assistants, and a treatment coordinator paid hourly plus a bonus on the cases she starts, set up once as a WageTime pay code and landing on the same check as her hours.
Replaces the case-start spreadsheet, and the conversion bonus re-typed each payday.
The day-rate deal runs in WageTime as two pay codes settled in one run: the flat day rate per clinical day, and the tiered percentage of collections it is guaranteed against. Which side wins in a given period stays between you and your advisor.
| Doctor | Clinical days | Guarantee / percentage | Pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dr. R. Sena owner | 18 days | $1,400/day vs 32% collections | $25,200.00 |
| Dr. L. Park associate | 12 days | $1,150/day vs 30% collections | $14,220.00 |
| Dr. L. Park satellite | 4 days | $1,150/day | $4,600.00 |
Replaces the month-end guarantee versus percentage settled by hand, and the clinical-day count kept on paper.
WageTime runs the practice as one employer with several offices: hours and pay are coded to the office worked, so the owner sees what each satellite costs in labor even when the team splits a week across three of them. One practice, one EIN.
| Office | Staff on site | Labor cost | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main Office | 9 | $61,400.00 | Posted |
| Northgate Satellite | 5 | $28,900.00 | Posted |
| Lakeshore Satellite | 4 | $21,650.00 | Posted |
| Traveling team doctor + TC + 2 asst | split 3 sites | coded by day | Reconciled |
Replaces the cost-per-office you lose the moment the team starts traveling, and the assistant double-booked across two locations.
The orthodontic credential set is its own list, with no hygiene license on it, and WageTime keeps all of it on one record with its renewal dates, categories configured to your state’s permit rules.
| Employee | Credential | Expires | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| M. Reyes assistant | Orthodontic-assistant permit | Aug 09 | 14 days |
| T. Okafor assistant | Radiography (RHS) cert | Nov 20 | Current |
| J. Alvarez coordinator | CPR/BLS card | Sep 30 | 66 days |
| Dr. R. Sena | State dental license | Apr 30 | Current |
| Dr. L. Park | DEA registration | Feb 14 | Current |
Replaces the permit renewal nobody was watching, and the board letter that follows a lapse.
The team bonus is a WageTime pay code, paid on the regular check or an off-cycle run at no extra cost. The pool splits by whatever rule you set, and the team feels the good month on the next check, not the next quarter.
Replaces the bonus paid by spreadsheet, and the good month that waited for quarter-end.
Full-service payroll is $10 a month per person paid that month, plus $50 a month per company, with unlimited runs. No long-term contracts, no per-run charges.
Off-cycle runs and bonuses cost nothing extra. No long-term contracts; cancel anytime.
Example: 50 people paid × $10 + $50 company = $550 for the month
HR & hiring, onboarding, PTO, time tracking, benefits, and workers’ comp are optional add-ons, priced separately when you’re ready.
See a demoSet the incentive once as a pay code: a flat amount per case started, or a tiered percentage of contract value. WageTime runs it every period on top of the coordinator’s hourly rate, so the bonus lands on the same check as her hours. Weighted-average overtime computes when hourly hours and a nondiscretionary incentive fall in one week.
The day rate is a flat-amount pay code per clinical day, and the percentage side of a guarantee-versus-percentage deal is a tiered commission on collections, so both halves of the formula run inside payroll. Because ortho cases are collected over a 12 to 24 month contract, the percentage uses the collected-revenue basis you define, and minimum-wage processing checks a light clinic day. Which side wins is your call.
A light clinic day still owes minimum wage. WageTime measures a day-rate doctor’s or an hourly assistant’s pay against the federal, state, and local wage floor for the hours actually worked, and when a slow day or thin week falls short, the run applies the make-up instead of leaving the office manager to spot it. How wage-and-hour rules apply to your practice is a call for your advisor.
Each employee record carries the ortho-specific set: the orthodontic-assistant or expanded-function permit, the radiography certification, the doctor’s dental license and DEA, and a CPR or BLS card, each with the document attached. WageTime fires renewal alerts 30, 60, and 90 days out, and the office manager reads what comes due this quarter for the whole team at once. Permit rules vary by state, so categories match yours.
Yes. A single practice runs under one EIN across every location, with hours and pay coded to the office worked, so you see labor cost per satellite or combined. Travel schedules publish with double-booking and rest-period checks so a traveling assistant isn’t booked twice, and payroll posts to QuickBooks mapped by location. A group of separate professional corporations is covered on our DSO and dental groups page.
Set the bonus as a pay code, split the pool by your rule, and pay it on the regular check or an off-cycle run at no extra cost. Supplemental-wage withholding is applied and every federal, state, and local tax is handled inside the run. Whether a nondiscretionary bonus enters the overtime regular rate is a call for your advisor; WageTime runs the code and computes weighted-average overtime.
$50 a month for the practice plus $10 per person paid that month, with unlimited payroll runs. Off-cycle bonus runs, corrections, and starts spiffs cost nothing extra, every federal, state, and local tax is filed automatically, and year-end W-2s and 1099s are included. There are no long-term contracts, and a practice that adds a satellite or a second doctor pays for who was paid, not a flat per-seat block.
Your coordinator’s incentive, your doctor’s guarantee-versus-percentage formula, and your satellite schedule. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo practice: you’ll watch a case-start bonus run with weighted overtime, a day rate settle against a percentage, and labor cost split across three offices.
Book a 20-minute demo