Dental News - Young US dentists more likely to practise in groups

Dental Tribune International

Tue. 13 June 2023

save

CHICAGO, US: New research from the American Dental Association (ADA) shows that the model of dental practice in the country is continuing to change. The number of dentists who are affiliated with dental service organisations (DSOs) is increasing, and dentists in solo practice are becoming rarer. Crucially, dentists who are in the early stages of their careers are increasingly opting to join larger corporate clinics.

ADA data shows that the number of US dentists affiliated with a DSO increased from 10.4% in 2019 to 13.0% in 2022. In 2017, 8.8% of dental practitioners in the country were affiliated with a corporate entity that managed certain aspects of their dental practices.

Dr Marko Vujicic, chief economist and vice president of the ADA Health Policy Institute (HPI), shared the new 2022 data in an online recording, stating that the ongoing shift in practice modality was one of the key trends that HPI was tracking. He said that the data showed clearly that dentists in more advanced stages of their careers were more likely to be practising in smaller clinics that were not affiliated with a DSO. “This is a conclusion we have been publishing extensively about for several years,” Dr Vujicic commented, adding that the data consistently showed a generational shift in what was considered to be a typical dental practice model.

Broken down by career stage, DSO affiliation was found among 23% of dentists who graduated from dental school within the last ten years and among 11% of dentists who completed their dental studies between 11 and 25 years ago. DSO affiliation among dentists who graduated more than 25 years ago was just 7%. Nevada was the state with the highest rate of overall DSO affiliation, at 23%, followed by Arizona, Colorado and Texas, which each had 21%.

The data showed that 17% of early-career dentists were in solo practice. This was less than half of the number of mid-career dentists who were in solo practice, which stood at 38%, and substantially less than the rate of solo practice among dentists with more than 25 years of work experience, which stood at 50%.

Nearly one quarter of early-career dentists were practising dentistry in clinics that had at least ten locations, and 16% of them worked at clinics with more than 100 locations. Among mid-career dentists, 11% worked at clinics with more than ten locations and 8% worked at clinics with more than 100 locations. Just 8% of dentists in the more advanced stage of their careers worked at clinics with more than ten locations, and only 5% of them worked at clinics with more than 100 locations.

“Our updated data show higher rates of dentist affiliation with DSOs, fewer dentists in solo practice and more in group practice, compared with earlier releases of these data,” Dr Vujicic concluded. He said that the changes were taking place much more rapidly in some US states.

HPI is currently conducting research on other factors related to dental practice modality, such as career satisfaction, income, work–life balance and patient outcomes, as well as the role of private equity in dental practice consolidation.