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Dental Hygienist
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Ive been a hygienist for 13 years in arizona. Prevention has always been my duty in the office to look out for my patients. I spent 3 years training to get a bachelor's degree in hygiene in which I still pay my student loan for. Now I hear an assistant can do a portion of my job with a 3 week training class. This is a total slap in my face for all of the years of dedication to this craft and my patients.
Aaron supported: Rescind SB1124- allow SAFE access to dental carePeople who voted to approve this bill have no idea how important it is to clean below the gum line with a LOT of training. An assistant cleaning teeth would be a huge setback to the underserved they are reported to be stepping in to help! I have never had a patient in my 21 year career as an RDH that didn’t need cleaning below the gingival margin!!!
Becky supported: Rescind SB1124- allow SAFE access to dental careI was a dental assistant who is now in school for hygiene. Why would I have to go to school for 2 1/2 years for something that you are letting people do with 120 hours of training? It is adding more onto what assistants already have to do without increasing their pay.
Samantha supported: Rescind SB1124- allow SAFE access to dental careI think a lot of dentists are seeing this shortsighted… if the flood gates are opened up like this with decreasing qualifications and cheap labor
You’re gonna open up to corporate dentistry being able to artificially lower procedures and undercut private dental offices with not having to worry about the overhead. To then take over the market.
They already access to excess Dental grads, and offering student loan repayments.
Dentist would need to create laws that would bar DSO’s and private equity firms from using this as a back door with the cheaper labor.
Because they’ll be able to scale that business model very quickly, especially with a recession on the way .
Dentists have already complained. The ADA has been infiltrated and corrupted with special interest groups. The ADA is trying to create compacts that will loosen standards with dentist licensure also. This all paving the way to make dentist’s
employees.
And with a recession and tariffs on materials , and patients being reluctant to pay anything out of pocket…
This is the perfect storm for corporations, special interest groups, and insurance companies to grab a hold of the market and scale quickly .
In regards to patient care, this would cause a lot of facilitated neglect .
As my Dental Hygiene professor always used to say ,
“no one has a healthy mouth ,very small minority.”
Dentists got addicted to insurance payments over the last couple decades, and then overtime corporations and insurance companies ,
extracted wealth from dental practices and then lowered there fees . And created Monopoly practices in areas.
This will be the final nail in that coffin, to finally take over the industry.
Happened with primary physicians in this country.
When I told this situation to my optometrist, he said the dentist used to be smart ones with their ADA .
And informing their association 100 years ago and they’re the ones that never used to even take insurance…
Writing is on the wall.
The solution always was to invest in your work culture and your community and for all of us to take care of each other. This would have prevented the attrition of employees in this field.
I have seen plenty of dentists who have said that Hygienist are gonna price themselves right out of the market,
When we all know that it’s the insurance companies to blame for not keeping up with reimbursements.
The reality is for 20 years there was surplus of Hygienists, and that lead to lesser benefits, health insurance, PTO, PT vs FT for hygienists and salary that stayed from $28 to about $35 an hour, and that number never changed for almost 20 years.
Now most are asking for $45 an hour, that’s not really egregious.
But the previous conditions led many Hygienists not to stay in the field. The work culture needed work, and insurance companies compounded that factor.
Antitrust laws needed to be enforced and weren’t.
The ADA should have protected their own.
and that includes the next generation of dentists, to become business owners, and their hygienists.
“ you’ll own nothing and be happy”
Caitlin supported: Rescind SB1124- allow SAFE access to dental careOver the past several years, the mouth-body connection has been a central narrative in dentistry—especially promoted by DSOs and corporate entities—framed as a progressive step toward whole-body health. At face value, this focus seemed like a win for both patients and providers. However, as the landscape continues to shift, it’s difficult not to question the underlying motives. Was this truly about advancing patient care, or was it about creating a new profit model?
Now, as strategies pivot once again, the focus remains centered not on patients, but on profitability. Unfortunately, patients are increasingly caught in the middle—reduced to pawns in a system that, at times, bears troubling resemblance to the tactics used in Big Pharma. The genuine pursuit of improved health outcomes seems to have taken a back seat to financial interests.
This leaves many of us in the profession asking: Are we truly valued as essential providers in soft tissue management and systemic disease prevention, or are we being sidelined for simply doing what we were encouraged to do—grow, specialize, and advocate for appropriate compensation all exacerbated despite post COVID landscape?
The irony is hard to ignore. Dental hygienists were urged to expand their roles, embrace the mouth-body connection, invest in continuing education, and implement evidence-based care. And we did. We elevated our clinical practices in ways that genuinely benefited patients. But now, we find ourselves labeled as “too expensive”—not because we fell short, but because we met or exceeded the expectations set before us.
Ironic: empower and elevate the workforce when it serves the business model, then shift the narrative when that empowerment becomes inconvenient or costly.
What’s more, this shift doesn’t appear to be rooted in solving access-to-care issues or addressing workforce shortages. Rather, it seems to have been in motion for some time—waiting for the right political and administrative landscape to support its implementation.
If improving patient care was truly the goal, why wasn’t the focus placed on reforming insurance structures and reimbursement models? Why undermine the very professionals who have dedicated their careers to patient education, prevention, and systemic wellness?
And as for the proposed “solution”—relying more heavily on dental assistants to fill the gap—let’s be realistic. Dental assistants are already overextended, under-recognized, and undercompensated. This is a short-term fix at best. Eventually, they too will demand fair wages and better working conditions, as they rightly should. When that time comes, the math won’t lie. Sustainable, long-term solutions require thoughtful investment—not corner-cutting.
These are important questions and considerations that deserve honest, transparent answers. This bill hurts so many people, patients and clinicians alike. Please kill the bill!
Melissa supported: Rescind SB1124- allow SAFE access to dental careMy sister is a hygienist she spent years learning all the safe and proper ways to be a hygienist. Hours of hands on practice and studying. This can not be a crammed session for dental assistants there is no way that they could take on these additional tasks in a safe and effective manner without causing patients harm a hygienist doesn’t do the dentists job why would an assistant do the hygienists? Would you let a nurse perform minor surgery or and sort of surgery? Would you let a pharmacist perform the duties of a nurse? No right, just like doctors and dentists and any professional that was required to attend years of school to be able to perform the duties they are required to so should dental assistants let’s not skip steps for any reason. Hygienist deserve to be treated with more respect.
Onel supported: Rescind SB1124- allow SAFE access to dental careI was a dental assistant for four years. Currently a full time hygienist for 34 years. This new bill will hurt the oral and general health of the dental patients. This is taking many steps backwards . The hygiene professionals have improved oral care over many decades. This is a disaster waiting to happen. Oral health has a high impact on overall health. Subpar cleanings will impact patients. This is a disservice to the the hygiene community and its patients. Consider reversing this new law.
Linda supported: Rescind SB1124- allow SAFE access to dental careAs a registered dental hygienist in Montana, I know how important our education is to making sure that patients receive a safe and productive dental prophylaxis that will not only help maintain their oral health but their systemic health. The years of prerequisite classes that we take combined with the years of classes that we take after entering the program give us not only the didactic skills needed but the base knowledge and deductive reasoning skills needed to care for our patients on an individual need basis. Please rescind SB1124 to protect the health and safety of your constituents.
Amber supported: Rescind SB1124- allow SAFE access to dental careAs a Registered Dental Hygienist I feel that patients will not received the standard of care that they should receive. We as hygienists had extensive training 2-4 years and for an assistant to be able to clean patients they only need 120 hours they will not be able to complete standard of care. The statistics show that near half of the population in America has periodontal disease. This will surely increase after the passing of this bill!! I veto this bill!!!
Esther supported: Rescind SB1124- allow SAFE access to dental careI am a dental assistant and I personally know it’s not right to preform this on people you’re caring for. I don’t know the first thing about a scaler. We practice what the DENTIST practices. We already have polishing (if licensed) that’s plenty.
Courtney supported: Rescind SB1124- allow SAFE access to dental careYou’re not alone — a community of supporters is ready to back you.
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