As the U.S. continues to deal with ongoing workforce shortages, practice owners and executives are looking for ways to attract and retain more hygienists.
Five leaders recently spoke with Becker’s to discuss how hygienist shortages are affecting their businesses and what they think the best solutions are to this challenge.
Editor’s note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: How is the hygienist shortage currently affecting your business? Overall, what do you think is needed to finally solve the hygienist shortage in the U.S.?
John Bell. CFO at Fireside Dental Co.: The hygienist shortage is putting tremendous pressure on dental practices, and it’s projected to continue to get worse over the next 10 years. From my perspective, an effective solution requires addressing both the supply and demand for hygienists. To increase the supply of hygienists, a coordinated marketing campaign to promote the hygienist career path to high school and college students could be very impactful to raise awareness and promote the opportunity to young people. To impact the demand side, the industry will need to embrace impactful AI workflow optimization tools that reduce the cognitive load and staff time required to do non-clinical tasks. There’s no magic bullet, but challenges create opportunities to improve.
Bob Ditomassi, DDS (Springfield, Mass.): The hygienist shortage has resulted in salary inflation whereby other dental offices will up the ante and attempt to hire hygienists in existing offices by offering higher salaries and sometimes a shorter working week. This situation raises the cost of doing business, which is passed on to the patient. A possible solution might be to have more hygiene schools opened in some of the community colleges.
Geith Kallas, DDS. CEO of Smile Makers Dental Center (Tyson’s Corner, Va.): The dental hygienist shortage is a pressing issue affecting dental practices across the U.S.
The shortage is causing longer appointment delays, higher patient attrition and increased pressure on remaining staff. In fact, about 3 in 5 dentists are worried about recruiting and retaining staff, especially dental hygienists. This is leading to an 11% reduction in dental practice capacity, affecting access to care for millions of Americans.
To address the shortage, several solutions are being explored:
– Competitive compensation: Offering fair wages and benefits to attract and retain hygienists.
– Flexible schedules: Providing part-time or flexible schedules to support work-life balance.
– Education and training: Investing in dental hygiene programs and innovative training approaches.
– Policy initiatives: Implementing loan forgiveness programs, tax incentives and grants for educational institutions.
– Technology integration: Leveraging digital dentistry, telehealth and AI-assisted diagnostics to optimize workflows.
Additionally, some potential solutions include:
1. Creating more hygienists: Increasing the number of dental hygiene programs can help boost the pipeline of qualified hygienists.
2. Fast-tracking foreign dentists: Allowing foreign-trained dentists to quickly obtain hygienist licenses could help alleviate the shortage.
3. Dental assistant training: Training dental assistants to perform simple hygienist duties could help redistribute workload and free up hygienists for more complex tasks.
By addressing these factors, we can work toward resolving the dental hygienist shortage and ensuring better oral healthcare for communities nationwide.
Krista Kappus, DDS. Fitch Mountain Dental (Healdsburg, Calif.): The current hygienist shortage is significantly impacting our business. We are now paying hygienists a higher hourly rate than what many insurance companies reimburse for cleanings, which creates an unsustainable financial imbalance for practices like ours. This makes it challenging to maintain adequate staffing and meet patient demand without overburdening our team or compromising care.
To truly solve the hygienist shortage in the U.S., I believe two major changes are needed:
1. Increase graduation rates and program availability: Entry into hygiene programs has become extremely competitive, existing programs are too small and graduation rates are low. Expanding the number of accredited programs, increasing class sizes and improving support for students would grow the workforce more effectively and help meet nationwide demand.
Expand functions for dental assistants: Allowing trained and certified dental assistants to perform simpler preventive procedures, such as basic prophylaxis, would free hygienists to focus on more advanced periodontal care. This tiered approach would improve access to preventive services, reduce patient wait times and alleviate pressure on the hygiene workforce.
Yossri Kairlis, DMD. Estey Dental Center (Brattleboro, Vt.): The hygienist shortage is affecting my business very badly to the point that I want to sell and work for somebody so I don’t have to waste most of my productive time in looking and rescheduling patients. The solution will be in creating [more] hygiene schools and making it easier to get in, graduate and pass the exam. Also, foreign dentists would love to get a hygiene license to work in their fields instead of working for something else, so why is it so difficult to regulate that?
