The practice of dentistry is a part of the overall health care industry and recent trends in this segment of the health care industry show a pattern similar to that of the industry as a whole. Steady growth. The graph shows estimated revenue taken in by Offices of Dentists annually from 1998 through 2012. While the rate of increase slowed a bit after the recession and financial crisis that hit in 2007 and 2008, growth in revenue continued. The growth in revenue for dentist offices between 1998 and 2012 exceeded inflation by 61.6% (dentistry’s 102.6% increase versus inflation which grew 41%).
Factors influencing that rate of growth for dentists are many of the same factors driving the overall health care industry, primarily among them, demographics and technology. As we age, we need more health care services of all sorts, including dental care. Technological advances are a driver in the field because they make available services that simply did not exist before and improve the ones that did. According to the American Dental Trade Association in the early 2000s nearly half of dentists’ revenues were being generated from procedures and treatments that were not available 20 years earlier.
Today’s market size is the total estimated revenue earned by offices of dentists in the United States in 2000 and in 2012.
Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2000 and 2012
Market size: $58.8 billion and $104.3 billion respectively
Sources: “Table 8.1. Health Care and Social Assistance (NAICS 62)–Estimated Revenue for Employer Firms: 2002 Through 2010,” Service Annual Survey 2010, U.S. Census Bureau, February 2012, page 171, a link to which is offered here. Data for years before 2002 come from the Service Annual Survey 2003, available from the same website. The data from 2011 and 2012 come from the “Estimated Quarterly Revenue for Employer Firms, Fourth Quarter 2003 Through Fourth Quarter 2012,” part of the same Annual and Quarterly Services tracking done by the Census Bureau in preparing their annual report. The quarterly data are available here. Jeffrey R. Lavers, “Market Trends in Dentistry,” Dental Economics, available online here.
Original source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census
Posted on October 24, 2013