A look at the top trends and challenges for dentists in 2026. Dr. Marko Vujicic, chief economist and vice president of the ADA Health Policy Institute, shares the industry predictions to help you prepare for the year ahead.

Special Guest: Dr. Marko Vujicic

For more information, show notes and transcripts visit https://www.ada.org/podcast

Show Notes

In this episode, we're looking at the top trends and challenges for dentists in 2026 with our guest Dr. Marko Vujicic, chief economist and vice president of the ADA's Health Policy Institute.

The episode starts by looking back at the predicted dental trends for 2025, which were staffing shortages, insurance challenges, and rising overhead costs.

When speaking about economic confidence, Vujicic notes that at the end of 2024 dentists expressed a significant rise in economic optimism about the stability of the dental sector. But, by the end of 2025 confidence levels had dipped, and practice confidence dropped as well due to tariffs, economic uncertainty, and larger national concerns.

The ADA's Health Policy Institute (HPI) conducts quarterly surveys. Dentists are invited to enroll in the panel by emailing hpi@ada.org to help share their experiences and strengthen national data.

Dentists were asked about their biggest expected challenges for 2026, and they reported that their core issues remain consistent with last year's, but with insurance leading the list, followed by staffing shortages and overhead cost increases. These issues remain steady across urban and rural practices, as well as with different practice modalities.

About 90% of dental practices report they are still struggling with hiring staff, even though there's a growing pipeline of dental hygienist graduates, and a rebound in patient volume. The conversation explores whether technology could help with this issue, but dentistry remains a hands-on profession with limits on how much can actually be automated.

Dentists shared with ADA's HPI that this year they intend to hire more staff, reevaluate their insurance networks, and invest in equipment, technology and software.

Some key findings from HPI's Practice Ownership Trends report shows that today's early-career experience is very different from past generations with a delayed path to practice ownership. Data shows that most dentists will eventually become owners, just later in their careers. The major change: ownership is delayed, not disappearing.

Another interesting theme that emerged from the data was the generational, cultural, and priority shifts happening in the profession. Also, HPI introduces fresh insights into gender pattens that show that even though women start with a lower rate of practice ownership than men, the ownership gender gap closes by mid- and late- career.

The conversation shifts to explore the challenges and opportunities from the broader national policy forces shaping dentistry in 2026, and the impact of the economic data influencing decisions in multiple states.

HPI continues their research and is focusing on tracking emerging dental policy issues, research on the impact of Dental Loss Ratio (DLR) regulations, and forthcoming analysis of oral trends within Medicare Advantage, to list a few.

Resources

Read ADA's Health Policy Institute's report Practice Ownership Trends in Dentistry: A New Look at Old Data.