While dentists want to promote access to dental care, most doubt that an unsupervised visit to the dental hygienist is the right answer.

Read more: Dentists Not Enthusiastic About Dental Hygiene Clinics

But why is that? We found that 76% of dentists think it’s not a profitable business model, whereas 22% think hygiene practitioners’ hands are tied by state laws.

Dental hygiene clinics seem to fail, because dental hygienists need dentists and dental practices to be most profitable. At least, that's what our dentist respondents seemed to think…

• "Dental hygiene clinics are bad for the public, good for hygienists. How much more are we willing to give up? We are health care providers. not just a good business model!" (New York prosthodontist)
• "Financially, I don’t see how it could pay for itself." (California dentist)
• "The whole concept is flawed. They cannot diagnose and read X-rays, and this will definitely lower the standard of care. It will also make it cost more since the doc will have to charge more to do dental exams." (Connecticut dentist)
• "Will they subcontract a DDS to come in to do exams at $200 an hour?"(Alaska dental office manager)
• "A hygienist is an invaluable team member due to close and continuous communication, which is not able to happen in remote hygiene settings." (California dentist)

Read more: Are Successful Dental Hygiene Clinics a Myth?