For Tracy Stiegelmayer, it wasn’t about the money.
She made a good living as a dental hygienist, earning roughly $76,000 a year working four days a week.
But after 14 years, she needed a change and wanted more flexibility. She recently accepted a job with a dental health insurer, allowing her to work from home.
“I love hygiene, and I loved working with people and whatnot, but there’s not really much flexibility,” said Stiegelmayer, a 39-year-old Middletown wife and mother of two who wanted to be there when her 6-year-old daughter came home from school.
Stiegelmayer is far from the only dental worker forsaking the field, as scores of hygienists and assistants are packing up and leaving, making it difficult for many to get an appointment in New Jersey.
In fact, some patients have seen a routine cleaning or checkup pushed back six months due to the shortage.
Dental hygienists and assistants are critical staff who make their offices run.
Hygienists and assistants perform cleanings, prepare patients, clean the rooms — essentially every function that allows the dentist to conduct procedures.
Hygienists are often paid pretty well, according to Stiegelmayer. In New Jersey, they can make around $94,000, the mean annual wage according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, although the number for dental assistants is about half that.
But those professionals are still in short supply. And desperate dentists are feeling the pain.
“Your routine dental treatment could be delayed for weeks or months because of our dental workforce shortages,” said Jim Schulz, director of governmental and public affairs for the New Jersey Dental Association.
The pandemic changed everything, especially in the health care industry, as the greater American workforce seeks more flexibility and work-life balance in the aftermath of COVID-19. And hygienists and dental assistants have joined nurses among the professionals fleeing en masse, creating manpower shortages.
“Dentistry is not immune,” Schulz said of the Great Resignation.
Before the pandemic, finding dental staff was easy, according to Dr. Mark Vitale — Stiegelmayer’s godfather. But now it’s nearly impossible.
And just scheduling patients for routine appointments is getting harder as everything slows down in his Edison office.
“Prior to COVID ... I never had a problem getting a hygienist,” Vitale said. “Dental assisting has always been a little bit of an issue because there aren’t as many programs as we need, but still, I was able to get a dental assistant.”
He agrees with Stiegelmayer that lifestyle, not pay, is driving the exodus. Dental hygienist and assistant salaries have gone up in recent years, Vitale says. But the workers are often bound to the office from early in the morning to well into the afternoon and evening.
The demand for workers is driving a new-found competitiveness in the dental field.
“I mean, I’m paying more than we’ve ever paid before,” Vitale said.
But “unless you have someone who’s very loyal to you, they’ll jump ship and go to another office if someone offers more money,” he added. “And then, unfortunately, as in any other business, you have people that will go out there and — I don’t want to say they steal employees — but they’ll entice employees. We’ve never really had that in the industry.”
An aging workforce is adding to the shortage. And not enough workers are replacing the retirees. At least 10 or 11 hygienist job posts appear daily on LinkedIn in New Jersey, Stiegelmayer says.
But the industry is limited in the number of new professionals it can produce, exacerbating the losses.
There are only five dental hygiene programs in the state, each with limited space, and just four dental assisting schools that offer Commission on Dental Accreditation-approved programs.
“We’re producing 100 hygienists a year. We have nearly 6,000 dental practices,” Schulz said. “You do the math.”
Limited slots once meant stiff competition, and some prospective students were wait-listed for years, according to Stiegelmayer. Although enrollment in the programs remains stable, demand has increased because of the attrition.
And a new school hasn’t opened in years in New Jersey “so we continue to graduate similar numbers of dental hygienists,” failing to meet the demand, Schulz said.
The New Jersey Dental Hygienists’ Association did not respond to requests for comment.
Dentists stress that patients should not hesitate to call when emergencies arise and they need immediate care.
“Emergency care — you’re still going to be seen, so don’t worry if you have an emergency. Call your dentist,” Schulz said.
But some patients are being advised not to reschedule cleanings — it could be months before they get another slot as offices lose employees like Stiegelmayer.
In 2015, she moved to Connecticut for several years and continued as a hygienist. She recently moved back to the Garden State, but was hesitant about remaining in the field.
“Am I going to work in another dental office?” she asked herself. “Do I want to do something different?”
The money wasn’t worth it, she thought. Then a friend from dental hygiene school — who also left the field — told her about the opening for a dental operations specialist with the insurer.
“She was the one that was like, ‘Hey, this might be a great opportunity for you. We’re hiring; you’re moving.’ And then I figured, if it doesn’t pan out, I can always go back. There’s so many hygiene jobs.”
To solve the growing problem, the industry needs to start thinking more creatively, some officials say.
“So that folks can go into that dental office, and they can begin to upskill and get educated in on-job training,” Schulz said. “We need to encourage thinking in that space. We need to be disruptive.”
In the meantime, dentists scramble to keep their offices running.
With a hygienist recently leaving his practice, Vitale has had to pick up the slack.
“I’m in the process of rescheduling her patients and either squeezing them into the other hygienists’ schedules or pushing them out several months to where we have an opening,” Vitale said. “And if someone needs to come in every three months and I’m pushing them off every five to six months, that can compromise the care they need.”
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Spencer Kent may be reached at skent@njadvancemedia.com.