The ongoing dental assistant shortage could lead to compounding challenges with accessibility and practice management if improvements aren’t made, according to Steven Spitz, DMD, president of the Massachusetts Dental Society.
Dentalpost’s 2026 Dental Salary Survey Report pointed to future challenges with recruiting and retaining dental assistants, showing that improvements in compensation, culture and workload are needed for stable retention.
According to the report, dental assistants are the likeliest dental professionals to be seeking new opportunities, with 47% considering changing jobs within the next two years. Among those considering changing jobs, 84% cite higher pay as a primary motivation, followed by better benefits and seeking a more appreciative employer. Only 54% of dental assistants said they are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their current work, compared to 57% last year.
Dr. Spitz recently spoke with Becker’s about how the dental assistant shortage is affecting dentistry, what is needed to mitigate these challenges, and what could happen if the shortages continue.
Note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: Were you surprised to hear some of the statistics on dental assistants from the most recent DentalPost report?
Dr. Steven Spitz: The reality is that costs are going up everywhere. Unfortunately, the cost of doing business in dentistry is also going up, so the profitability of a dental practice has been stagnant. When you add those two together, there are many dental offices that are just not equipped and can’t afford to continue to raise their pay to their employees when their reimbursements [have] been standardized [and] when all of their costs of doing business are going up.
On the other hand, we all know how important a dental team is and we revere our dental assistants truly as our right hands. To be able to work without a dental assistant is crippling to a dental office. It’s a double-edged sword that I know many practices fight with on a constant basis. The more “better run” practices tend to be able to keep their team members happy and satisfied and continue to increase their benefits or their pay [and keep] a very healthy and positive environment. So, I’m not surprised to hear some of these statistics.
Q: Dental assistants are an often overlooked role within dental practices. Why do you think that is?
SS: That, to me, is disturbing or not a positive viewpoint because I’ve always looked at our dental assistants, the ones I’ve worked with and ones I’ve met, as such an integral part of our team. I think when you look at some corporate structures where there may not be as much room for advancement or [there are] so many layers of bureaucracy … I can understand where, if you’re not working with someone who’s got the right personality or the right attitude, that could feel stifling and like they’re not appreciated. It’s understandable in structures like that. In small private practices, the environment of the entire office is just known. You feel the energy of the office, so it would be disturbing to hear that an assistant wouldn’t be respected because that would certainly be felt by not only other team members, but the patients as well.
Q: What kind of impact is the dental assistant shortage having on dental practice operations and patient care?
SS: The overall impact is tremendous. There are many practices that are having trouble finding qualified assistants and hygienists, and therefore, the doctors are now taking on the roles of not only doing their dental work, but also running the practice, which slows them down [and] doesn’t allow them to use their skills the way they were meant to be. Dentistry is not easy. It’s not easy to do alone. It definitely takes a group and a team effort. That’s why dental assistants are so important. It’s important to have that extra set of hands in order to give the best care that we can to our patients … It’s tremendous to have the team, and when we’ve got this workforce shortage, it puts a big crimp on how a dental office can provide the optimum care for their patients. Our goal now is promoting what a great opportunity oral health and being in healthcare is [and] what a great, desirable job and offering this has for a career. Right now, it’s really important for us to get the word out that this is a great job, that being in healthcare is a fantastic opportunity for growth and development, and a great opportunity for people who care about others, who want to to see others succeed and promote, not only overall health, but oral health.
Q: What can dental practices do to improve the hiring and retention of dental assistants?
SS: If every practitioner looks at treating their team as not only a family, but as a working machine where everybody counts on each other, or everybody has their responsibilities, not only to each other, but to your patients and to the practice, and when everyone has their responsibilities and understands how everyone should work together as a team, it only promotes that healthy environment. When you’ve got a healthy, positive environment, that’s where everyone wants to be. Everyone wants to be where they’re happy, where they’re appreciated, where they’re successful and where they have opportunities for growth. Those are some of the opportunities we look at — how do we offer a happy, positive environment where people can thrive and be their best? I think if all practitioners look at their teams in that light, I think we’ll find that everyone will benefit, and dentistry will benefit.
We need to continue to make it easy for people to enter the field of dentistry. We are constantly burdened with regulations and with higher prices of our supplies [and] lower reimbursements from these dental plan companies, and I think we need to be looking from a positive viewpoint of the impact we have on people’s lives. We know oral health leads to overall health, and if we can focus on the overall health and how we help people, we can continue to build our base of practitioners and auxiliaries and team members. We just have to have a very positive viewpoint. When we look at the technology we have and all the great things dentistry can do, these are the things we have to focus on, on what makes dentistry great and fun. We need to continue basically educating people on what we can do and how we do it, and the joy we get from seeing people happy and smiling.
Q: What is the Massachusetts Dental Society doing to address the dental assistant shortage in your state specifically?
SS: We’ve actually done surveys looking at where [dental assistants] can enter the healthcare field, whether they have experience or not. There are many opportunities for, not only entering the profession, but also for growth and development. We have CE courses in order to promote dentistry and promote dental assisting. We are always talking about how to increase retention and attract future assistants by supporting dental assistants and their success and opening up pathways for on-the-job training and other employment models. We’ve been looking at many opportunities for getting out there to promote the positive effects of joining a healthcare team, particularly in dentistry. The opportunities for growth are you can start out as a dental assistant, and if you really enjoy it and you want to go on further, you can certainly go on to hygiene school and become a hygienist. Or, many of our dental assistants have then gone on to become dentists and gone on to dental school. The opportunities are endless as far as education and those opportunities. We’ve been doing job fairs and other promotions, trying to get the word out that dentistry and oral health is not only a great career, but a great starting point for other healthcare fields as well.
Q: If you could look ahead, maybe between five and 10 years from now, what’s at stake for dental practices and oral healthcare in the U.S. if the shortage were to get worse?
SS: I think that’s going to be very tough. If we cannot inspire people to want to help others [and] if we cannot inspire others to join dental teams, I guess I would say that I would be anxious that our care could be compromised in certain ways, and that it may be more challenging to get to providers in order to maintain proper oral health. As I mentioned earlier, dentistry is definitely a team-oriented profession and we need each other. I think that’s why this is such a crisis now. We need to do a better job of letting people know what a wonderful career we have, and how great it is to be in oral health where we can make a difference in people’s lives. The danger is definitely there that it could have some major negative effects if we do not do our best to promote the positive attributes that having a career in dentistry has.
