The dental industry has not been immune to the suffocating effects of inflation.
The annual inflation rate in 2022 was 6.5 percent, a 0.5 percent decrease from 2021, making 2022 the year with the second-highest annual inflation rate of the 2000s.
These numbers combined with obstacles such as declining reimbursement create a particular challenge for dentists.
"The reimbursement fees are not catching up with the inflation nor with the staff members' pay increases," Abrahim Setoodeh, DDS, a dentist at Peoria (Ariz.) Dental Center, told Becker's. "We had to increase our hygienist pay by 40 percent and other staff by almost 20 percent just to keep him happy. The lab and supplies cost have all gone up by almost 5 percent."
More than 40 percent of dentists cited inflation, overhead, and rising costs as a challenge they anticipate facing within the next six months, according to a January poll from the American Dental Association's Health Policy Institute.
Recent inflation rates are unprecedented compared with those the U.S. economy has seen over the past two decades.
Here is the annual inflation rate for every year since 2000, using consumer price index data:
2000: 3.4 percent
2001: 1.6 percent
2002: 2.4 percent
2003: 1.9 percent
2004: 3.3 percent
2005: 3.4 percent
2006: 2.5 percent
2007: 4.1 percent
2008: 0.1 percent
2009: 2.7 percent
2010: 1.5 percent
2011: 3.0 percent
2012: 1.7 percent
2013: 1.5 percent
2014: 0.8 percent
2015: 0.7 percent
2016: 2.1 percent
2017: 2.1 percent
2018: 1.9 percent
2019: 2.3 percent
2020: 1.4 percent
2021: 7 percent
2022: 6.5 percent