😬 Dentists were asked to name their top 3 challenges for 2026, and 751 dentists responded. Ranked by how often each issue was selected:
1. Insurance reimbursement / denials / insurance issues — 55.3%
2. Staffing / recruitment / retention — 54.2%
3. Increasing overhead / expenses — 41.5%
4. Maintaining or increasing patient volume / keeping schedules full — 31.8%
5. Economy / inflation — 9.7%
6. Patients delaying/refusing treatment or unable to pay — 8.8%
7. Too busy / not enough space to meet patient demand — 5.7%
8. Work-life balance / burnout / stress — 5.1%
9. Keeping up with new technology / equipment — 4.5%
10. Government regulations / mandates — 3.9%
The huge drop from #4 (31.8%) to #5 (9.7%) shows that dentists’ biggest problems are really concentrated in four areas: insurance, staffing, overhead and keeping the schedule full. Everything else is cited far less often.
Burnout is a little misleading as a standalone category because it can be the result of those other problems. ADA data found 40%+ of dentists felt defeated, wanted to quit, or didn’t want to go to work at least monthly and those feelings were more common among dentists 44 and younger. So burnout could be much bigger among younger dentists than its individual “challenge” ranking suggests.
By Dr. Patrick Anghel, DDS (Pat.the.Dentist)