The American Dental Association’s Health Policy Institute (HPI) has published new data showing that while younger U.S. dentists are becoming practice owners at lower rates early in their careers, most eventually do take that step.
“Our analysis suggests that the trend of declining practice ownership among younger dentists is primarily an early-career phenomenon,” said Dr. Marko Vujicic, chief economist and vice-president of the HPI.
The report found that an estimated 21 per cent of dentists who graduated between 2016 and 2020 owned practices, along with 33 per cent of those who graduated between 2011 and 2015. In contrast, approximately 63 to 70 per cent of dentists who graduated in 2010 or earlier were owners at the same point in their careers.
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“That is, practice ownership appears to be significantly delayed for newer graduates, but eventually the vast majority of dentists become practice owners,” said Vujicic. “Where ‘eventually’ used to be very early in a dentist’s career for older generations, now it is pushed back much further into the mid- and late-career stages. In a nutshell, most roads still, eventually, lead to practice ownership.”
The gap narrows considerably as dentists reach 15 to 19 years post-graduation. The data shows that 81 per cent of 2006–10 graduates owned practices, compared with 89 per cent of those who graduated between 1991 and 1995.
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