The Dental Hygiene Assistant

Providing an assistant for a dental hygienist can increase dental hygiene productivity by over 30% immediately. This is a mathematical analysis, where the hygienist focuses only on specific hygiene treatments, such as scaling and root planing, and the dental hygiene assistant manages all other aspects of the hygiene visit. In order for this to work properly, a hygienist will utilize two rooms moving comfortably back-and-forth while the dental hygiene assistant handles his or her part of the appointment and process. Although with the current hygiene shortage, few practices utilize dental hygiene assistants, and it will take time to catch up. This can be an excellent solution to increasing the number of patients that can be seen in dental hygiene in a practice.

Hygienists are often concerned that moving between rooms with a dental hygiene assistant will cause rushing and more fatigue later in the day. However, based on observation and interviews with dental practice teams, the opposite is true. Having a dental hygiene assistant handle all the administrative and lower-level tasks, such as taking radiographs or fluoride treatments, allows a dental hygienist to focus specifically on his or her part of the patient appointment in a relaxed and comfortable manner. Practices also tend to run more on time as dentists become aware that the increased volume handled by each dental hygienist will be thrown off more if the dentist is running late to perform their part of the hygiene exam.