Dental practices are struggling to recruit dental hygienists, dental assistants, dentists and administrative staff, with each role being mostly "extremely" or "very" challenging to recruit, according to a poll from the American Dental Association's Health Policy Institute.
The poll was taken as part of the ADA's monthly "Economic Outlook and Emerging Issues in Dentistry" report for the week of June 12. Six hundred eighty-three respondents answered the question on recruiting challenges.
Here are the positions dental practices have been recruiting and the levels of difficulty they have faced:
Dental hygienists
Extremely challenging: 79.8 percent
Very challenging: 14.7 percent
Dental assistants
Extremely challenging: 53 percent
Very challenging: 30.7 percent
Dentists
Extremely challenging: 59.2 percent
Very challenging: 20.1 percent
Administrative staff
Extremely challenging: 38.1 percent
Very challenging: 31.3 percent