Nearly 30% of dentists said they were "not busy enough" with their workload in 2023, an increase of more than 8% from 2022, according to data from the American Dental Association's Health Policy Institute.
The 29.4% of dentists who said they were not busy enough was the highest percentage since 2014, when 33.6% of dentists responded the same way.
Busyness data for 2023 was collected from the ADA's 2024 "Survey of Dental Practice," which surveyed 60,975 private practice dentists in the U.S.
Here is the percentage of dentists who had a perceived workload of "not busy enough" for each year since 2007:
Note: Data was not available for 2020.
2007: 20.5%
2008: 24.3%
2009: 32.9%
2010: 33%
2011: 38%
2012: 35.7%
2013: 35.9%
2014: 33.6%
2015: 27.6%
2016: 27.2%
2017: 24.4%
2018: 26.5%
2019: 18.1%
2021: 21.7%
2022: 21.9%
2023: 29.4%