ADA: Significant Increase In The Supply Of Dentists By 2040

[Cold Front]

The profession’s governing body who accredits a new dental school every other year decided to release a report... ”There are more dentists coming to your community in the future”.

That’s music to the DSO’s ears. They can now double down on recruiting young and highly debt-ridden dentists.

Most dentists are still oblivious to the direction the profession is heading. More dentists, more saturated markets, more competition, more stagnant insurance reimbursements, less income for dentists in those markets relative to inflation. Meanwhile... the nation‘s poor and those who can’t afford dental services are growing faster than the middle class and the wealthy.

The ADA conveniently leaves out the implications of more dentists per population in the future.

HPI projects increase in supply of dentists by 2040

The ADA Health Policy Institute is projecting that there will be a significant increase in the supply of dentists by 2040.

www.ada.org

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[Alpha Centauri]

Dentistry will be what you make of it no doubt, however at the end of the day no matter what repayment plan a dentist is on, we will be ahead of most.

Does this make it right to have immense student loans?
Absolutely not

 

[DustFreeEraser]

According to HPI, understanding the future supply of dentists only partially contributes to the central policy question of whether the dental workforce will be able to meet population needs. The issue of provider adequacy is far more complex and further research is needed.

How much were they paid to make it sounds like the dental workforce hasn't been able to meet population needs?

 

[2TH MVR]

At some point. Just like an overheated stock market, housing market, etc. The bubble will collapse. Things will correct. And as always ... there will be carnage. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

 

[Cold Front]

At some point. Just like an overheated stock market, housing market, etc. The bubble will collapse. Things will correct. And as always ... there will be carnage. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

There will be a lot of washing, rinsing and repeating if the issues in dentistry falls off a cliff.

 

[UncleJoesVeneers]

For what it's worth, I've met Marko several times. He's a nice guy, but he's not a dentist. And the ADA has given him carte blanche to publish anything without review. The HPI's report on geographic access to care for Medicaid children was extremely specious, for example. It greatly overestimated the number of dentists accepting Medicaid using really dubious datasets. So I take any of their projections with a grain of salt.

That said, few states need more dental schools. Adding private schools in CA, NC are just going to funnel high-debt students to already saturated cities. The only way to get dentists to rural, underserved areas are to matriculate more people from those areas. And even if you do get them to go home, there's no reason to believe they're going to accept Medicaid or low-income patients. And lastly, the primary reason uninsured, underserved patients visit the dentist is for pain or anterior esthetic concerns (e.g. MIDFL on #8), not for routine or preventive dentistry.

Long story short, the only way to mitigate disease burden in the US is with upstream policy intervention (e.g. excise taxation of sugary beverages, restrictions on marketing of processed food/bev, etc), not with more dentists or dental schools. As everyone saw during COVID, a lot of what dentistry does is elective. Millennials and Gen Z have healthier teeth than previous generations. We do not need more dental schools. We need more affordable dental education.

 

[Cold Front]

For what it's worth, I've met Marko several times. He's a nice guy, but he's not a dentist. And the ADA has given him carte blanche to publish anything without review. The HPI's report on geographic access to care for Medicaid children was extremely specious, for example. It greatly overestimated the number of dentists accepting Medicaid using really dubious datasets. So I take any of their projections with a grain of salt.

That said, few states need more dental schools. Adding private schools in CA, NC are just going to funnel high-debt students to already saturated cities. The only way to get dentists to rural, underserved areas are to matriculate more people from those areas. And even if you do get them to go home, there's no reason to believe they're going to accept Medicaid or low-income patients. And lastly, the primary reason uninsured, underserved patients visit the dentist is for pain or anterior esthetic concerns (e.g. MIDFL on #8), not for routine or preventive dentistry.

Long story short, the only way to mitigate disease burden in the US is with upstream policy intervention (e.g. excise taxation of sugary beverages, restrictions on marketing of processed food/bev, etc), not with more dentists or dental schools. As everyone saw during COVID, a lot of what dentistry does is elective. Millennials and Gen Z have healthier teeth than previous generations. We do not need more dental schools. We need more affordable dental education.

I don’t think making dental school cheaper is an option. That train left the station many years ago. Schools and their faculty are accustomed to their insane fees for about a generation now, and the government will not stop issuing blank checks to dental students anytime soon. It’s anti-business, and the government doesn’t want to lose future tax revenues from future debt-ridden dentists. Tax revenues that are not only from dentists, but also the jobs that rely on dentists (hygienists, dental assistants, receptions, vendors, landlords, etc). So the status quo will not change anytime soon, regardless of how many better ideas are out there.

The only option IMO is to let the current dental education financial model and it’s impact on access to correct itself. Maybe the correction will come in the form of a federal bailout for dentists with big students loans, in exchange for accepting Medicaid or practicing in rural areas. Maybe it will come in the form of higher Medicaid reimbursement if dentists work or set up a shop in an underserved community. The government has a lot of tools to play carrot and stick approach to address the impending crisis. The HHS handed out stimulus money to dentists when they closed their offices for covid, the local governments gave direct grants and PPE related stimulus, etc. If anything, the pandemic showed us how the government can step in and put out any kind of fire.

In the meantime, the storm within the profession (unsustainable student loans, access issues, low Medicaid providers, etc) will continue to strengthen. There will be more reports that will forecast some form of endgame on the issues mentioned above.