This month we wanted to look at how valuable the hygiene department is for a successful dental practice. We tend to agree with the 48% of dentists who consider an outstanding hygiene department essential for success, since hygienists help diagnose the amount of dentistry needs to be done and, therefore, increase revenue. When looking at the highest earning practices in Canada, they had an average of 5.6 dental hygienists at their practice, compared to the 1.7 average for lower earning practices. When comparing hygiene days offered, the higher revenue practices tended to offer a full five days while the lower earners offered three to four days. If you are currently searching for a way to increase practice revenue, the data suggests that increasing your hygiene days offered and the number of hygiene appointments could be a possible solution!
As seen in the print issue of Oral Health November 2023
*In October and November 2022 Bramm Research, a third-party independent research house, con-ducted an online survey of active, practicing non-hospital affiliated dentists and dental specialists on behalf of Oral Health. Survey invitations went out to a contact list of approximately 9,000 readers and there were 251 completions, for a response rate of 2.8. With a total sample of 251, the margin of error is plus or minus 6.0 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level. If, for example, 50% of the sample indicated that agreed with a statement, then we can be reasonably sure (19 times out of 20) of an accuracy within +/- 6.0%. This means that a total census would reveal an answer of not less than 44.0% and not more than 56.0%.
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