What Is a Dental Assistant Salary in Colorado?
One of the exciting things about becoming a dental assistant is the competitive wage you earn after just 13 weeks of training! It’s also a rapidly growing field with impressive job stability. Let’s dive in and explore factors such as the estimated starting dental assistant salary, median salary, expanded duties salary, and benefits.
What Is the Nationwide Dental Assisting Salary?
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that as of 2021, the average for a dental assistant salary was $18.59 per hour, which is $38,660 per year. There are approximately 358,600 dental assisting jobs nationwide. Industry growth is expected to increase by 8% from 2021 to 2031. This is an estimated 56,400 new job openings per year. Percentage-wise, this is a much faster job growth rate than most industries. This is because everyone needs a dentist!
New job openings include:
- Positions in new dental practices
- Replacing retiring dental assistants.
- Replacing those who pursue their dental hygienist degree.
- Replacing those who transition to a different industry.
What Is a Dental Assistant Salary in Colorado?
Indeed reports that the median salary for dental assisting in Colorado is $22.03. The starting salary is closer to $16 and the high-end salary for those with both tenure and expanded duties training is $29.
In addition to an attractive starting salary, most dental clinics provide:
- Quality health insurance.
- Discounted dental care.
- 401K retirement plans.
- Paid sick days.
- Paid vacation time.
How to Earn More Money as a Dental Assistant?
As someone new to dental assisting, you will start on the lower end of the pay spectrum and your wages will increase with tenure. However, you may also be able to increase your salary by working in a specialty practice or investing in EDDA training.
Working in a Specialty Practice
Working in a dental clinic that provides specialty dental and oral health care services may increase your earning potential. Specialty providers charge more, so they can pay more.
This might include working in a clinic that specializes in:
- Oral surgery
- Cosmetic dentistry
- Restorative dentistry
- Orthodontics
- Pediatric dentistry
- Geriatric dentistry
EDDA Training
Our Expanded Duties Dental Assisting Program (EDDA) is an additional 7 weeks of training. You can take this training directly after your 13-week program, or at any time in the future. As a new hire, it may not provide you with much of a pay increase, but it may accelerate your pay scale as you can perform more job duties than a standard dental assistant.
If you are already a dental assistant, investing in EDDA training may result in a pay raise upon completion.
New or tenured, EDDA training makes your resume stand out.
What Additional Job Duties Can You Perform With EDDA Training?
We take a deep dive into the difference between standard dental assisting and expanded duties in this blog post, but here’s a quick overview:
Standard training job duties include:
- Ensuring patients are comfortable before and during their treatments.
- Patient intake, blood pressure, and pulse.
- Taking and developing x-rays.
- Completing dental pantographs.
- Providing patients with follow-up care instructions.
- Assisting the dentist and hygienist during treatments.
- Infection control and sterilization.
- Clerical and administrative tasks.
Expanded duties training job duties include:
- The standard job duties above.
- Applying multiple techniques of Pit and Fissure Sealants.
- Fluoride Application.
- Placing multiple methods of isolation techniques for restorative dentistry of Matrix Systems.
- Place, condense, carve, finish, and polish Amalgam and Composite Restorations.
- Trim and polish intermediate crowns and bridges.
- Place temporary crowns and bridges.
Want to Learn More About a Career in Dental Assisting?
If you would like to learn more about the hands-on training at the American Institute of Dental Assisting, reach out to schedule a free tour!
We have convenient evening and weekend classes, you can apply for financial aid, and our program includes hands-on training in a live dental clinic.