The top 3 challenges facing dentists in 2023

2023 marks the third year of the ADA Health Policy Institute’s monthly polling around the perspectives of practicing dentists on the dental economy and other current events impacting the industry. Whether you’ve been with us from the start or joined somewhere along the way, we thank you for your continued interest and insights as we begin another year together.  

Now that the books have closed on 2022, we’re surveying the dental landscape of 2023. The December and January waves of HPI’s Economic Outlook and Emerging Issues in Dentistry poll find that dentists are actively anticipating and taking action for the year ahead:

• Top 3 Challenges: The top concerns dental practices are dealing with are staffing, rising operating costs, and stagnant insurance reimbursement levels. There will continue to be margin compression.
• Top 3 Practice Preparations: The top actions dentists plan in 2023 are raising fees, hiring more staff and dropping out of some insurance networks. Nearly three out of four dentists plan to raise their fees, 2 out of 5 dentists want to hire more staff, and more than a third intend to drop out of some insurance networks.

Other key takeaways include:

• Recruitment Needs: Recruitment needs for dental hygienists and assistants slightly declined again in January. But by no means is the shortage over. Dentists continue to say recruitment is extremely challenging.
• Practice Schedules: Dental practice schedules remain steady at the start of 2023, with schedules 85% full on average in January. For several months, we have been in a ‘holding pattern’. Increasingly, dental practices are saying ‘not enough patients’ is the key reason they are not busier, compared to ‘staffing shortages’ which was a much bigger reason a year ago.
• Dental Spending: The December data show no big developments in terms of dental spending trends. Here too, we appear to be in a ‘holding pattern’. It is unlikely there is any more pent-up demand to work through, and we may be hitting a new “steady state.”

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