What the calculator works out
When a team member leaves, costs arise in three places: finding someone new (job ads, agency fees, your own time for interviews), the weeks without cover (lost revenue because fewer patients can be seen, or extra costs for overtime and temporary staff) and the onboarding, during which the new colleague is paid in full but is not yet fully productive.
While the position is vacant, the practice does not pay that salary. By default the calculator subtracts those saved employer costs, so the result is the net cost; untick the box if you want to see the costs only. Euro results are rounded half up to the cent, and every line can be recomputed from the figures shown.
The formulas
- Employer costs per year
- = gross monthly salary × salaries per year × (100 % + employer share in %)
- Employer costs per week
- = employer costs per year ÷ 52
- Loss during the vacancy
- = weeks without cover × lost revenue or extra costs per week
- Onboarding
- = onboarding weeks × employer costs per week × (100 % − productivity during onboarding in %)
- Costs
- = recruiting + loss during the vacancy + onboarding + other costs
- Employer costs saved (optional)
- = weeks without cover × employer costs per week
- Cost of one departure
- = costs − employer costs saved
- In monthly salaries
- = cost of one departure ÷ gross monthly salary
Which figures to enter
The salary is the gross monthly salary of the position. Enter 13 salaries per year if a thirteenth month's pay or similar is paid. The employer share is pre-filled with the statutory rates for 2026; change it if your payroll shows a different figure.
The lost revenue per week of vacancy is your own estimate. If you want the lost profit instead of the lost revenue, enter the revenue minus the variable costs (materials, lab). Productivity during onboarding: 50 % means the new colleague does half of the work of an experienced one during those weeks.
Employer social insurance shares 2026
Keeping staff: what the figures show
Figures from the special survey on staff shortages in the 2023 dental practice panel (ZäPP), run by the Zi on behalf of the KZBV; 1,900 dentists answered the staffing questions.
Vacancies stay open for months
In the survey, filling a position took about six months on average, and 54 % of the practices that had looked for non-dental staff in the past two years could not fill every position. Six months are about 26 weeks: enter a realistic number of vacancy weeks in the calculator.
Sources: Fehlende Fachkräfte schränken Patientenversorgung ein (16.10.2024); Umfrage belegt: Fachkräftemangel wirkt sich auf Praxisalltag aus (19.09.2024)
Few suitable applications
On average there were only 3.5 applications per open position, and most of them (about 2.6) did not match the requirements. Every departure you avoid saves this search.
Sources: Fehlende Fachkräfte schränken Patientenversorgung ein (16.10.2024); Umfrage belegt: Fachkräftemangel wirkt sich auf Praxisalltag aus (19.09.2024)
Shortages limit what the practice can offer
40 % of the practices rated their staffing as bad or very bad, and around 43 % had already had to reduce their range of treatments.
Sources: Fehlende Fachkräfte schränken Patientenversorgung ein (16.10.2024); Umfrage belegt: Fachkräftemangel wirkt sich auf Praxisalltag aus (19.09.2024)
Check the pay
The median gross monthly pay of full-time ZFA in Germany is €2,841 (Federal Employment Agency, reference date 31 December 2025); the ZFA collective agreement starts at €2,620 in pay group I where it applies. The salary page shows the figures by region, tariff group and year of service.
Take routine work off the team
According to the KZBV, practice teams feel burdened because the administrative workload keeps growing. Clear responsibilities, templates and digital forms help, and software can take routine work off the team too, for example AI documentation such as patientnotes.ai, which Dr Hajtó has used in his practice for over two years, or AI phone assistants such as Milo.
patientnotes.ai · Milo · Sources: Fehlende Fachkräfte schränken Patientenversorgung ein (16.10.2024); Umfrage belegt: Fachkräftemangel wirkt sich auf Praxisalltag aus (19.09.2024)