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Dental · Benchmarks · for The Overdue Patient List

Hygienist staffing and wages

The national hygienist-staffing poll and the federal wage figures that The Overdue Patient List quotes in Chapters 3 and 6, kept here with their dates because they change every quarter or every year.

Last checked: 26 September 2026

What changes: the dentist poll runs every quarter and the wage survey every year; this page is re-dated when they do.

Every figure is labelled published: from a public, primary source, shown exactly as the book's numbers sheet records it, with the source, its publisher, the data year and the date it was read. See the editorial policy.

These are national figures, not practice benchmarks. The poll is of dentists, the wages are national means, and none of it says what any one practice pays or how short-staffed it is.

Hygiene capacity is tight: in Q1 2026, 60.3% of dentists said they had enough hygienists and 37.6% had recruited one in the past three months, most finding it very or extremely hard.

What the book says, in its own words (claim C10).

In the book: Chapter 6

FigureValueDataSource
Dentists saying they have an adequate number of hygienists (HPI poll, Q1 2026)
percent of dentists		 60.3%
Published		 Q1 2026 The State of the U.S. Dental Economy, 1st Quarter 2026 Update (ADA HPI slide deck; Economic Outlook and Emerging Issues in Dentistry Poll, Q1 2026, 796 responses).
American Dental Association, Health Policy Institute
Captured 26 September 2026 · https://www.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/ada-org/files/resources/research/hpi/state_us_dental_economy_q12026.pdf
Dentists who recruited a hygienist in the past three months (HPI poll, Q1 2026)
percent of dentists		 37.6%
Published		 Q1 2026 The State of the U.S. Dental Economy, 1st Quarter 2026 Update (ADA HPI slide deck; Economic Outlook and Emerging Issues in Dentistry Poll, Q1 2026, 796 responses).
American Dental Association, Health Policy Institute
Captured 26 September 2026 · https://www.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/ada-org/files/resources/research/hpi/state_us_dental_economy_q12026.pdf

Caveat (the book's): Poll of 796 dentists; dated; web-carried. Context for protecting hygiene hours, not a practice figure.

Receptionists in offices of dentists earned a mean $22.32 an hour and hygienists $47.77 (BLS OEWS, May 2025); the composite's $30 an hour front-desk cost is a loaded cost above that wage.

What the book says, in its own words (claim C09).

In the book: Chapter 3

FigureValueDataSource
Dental hygienists in offices of dentists, mean hourly wage (OEWS May 2025)
USD per hour		 47.77
Published		 May 2025 estimates Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025: national cross-industry and NAICS 621200 (Offices of Dentists) estimates; flat files oesm25nat.zip (national_M2025_dl.xlsx) and oesm25in4.zip (nat4d_M2025_dl.xlsx), corroborated by BLS Public Data API v1 series OEUN0000000000000291292xx / 434171xx.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Captured 26 September 2026 · https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25nat.zip ; https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25in4.zip ; https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v1/timeseries/data/
Receptionists and information clerks in offices of dentists, mean hourly wage (OEWS May 2025)
USD per hour		 22.32
Published		 May 2025 estimates Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025: national cross-industry and NAICS 621200 (Offices of Dentists) estimates; flat files oesm25nat.zip (national_M2025_dl.xlsx) and oesm25in4.zip (nat4d_M2025_dl.xlsx), corroborated by BLS Public Data API v1 series OEUN0000000000000291292xx / 434171xx.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Captured 26 September 2026 · https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25nat.zip ; https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25in4.zip ; https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v1/timeseries/data/

Caveat (the book's): Wages, not loaded cost; national means. Perishable: carried on /benchmarks with its date.

Source notes

Back to the companion page for The Overdue Patient List, or run the recall flow calculator. Its figures here are recorded in the book's foundation files (commit 1747559f).