The dental economy has had issues for a long time now, long before the recession issues in 2008. The reason for this is because adults tend to not go, and a low percentage of adults need any serious dental work or appliances. This will be changing soon thanks to the generations of baby boomers who will need to visit the dentist to fix their dental needs. This in turn will boost the number of adults who will visit the dentist as an average.
While the number of adults who visit the dentist annually has gone down, the number of children going has risen. It seems that mostly low-income children are visiting the dentist, but this does not make a big dent in the dental economy since children’s dental care is generally less expensive than adult dental care.
To learn more about this interesting trend in the dental economy click here to learn more: http://www.ada.org/news/8483.aspx
Dr. James Spivey, DDS, MS, Perio 