Provisional results from the 2023 Survey of Oral Health Care Providers

Released: 2024-11-18

The Survey of Oral Health Care Providers (SOHCP) is the first national survey of its kind to focus on oral health care providers, offering valuable insights into the current state of the oral health care system in Canada. With the anticipated increase in demand for oral health care resulting from the implementation of the Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP), the SOHCP provides important information to better understand the challenges and risks oral health care practices face in delivering care, including their ability to accommodate additional patients.

In a continuing commitment to putting timely information in the hands of Canadians, the results of a study based on provisional data from the SOHCP are being released today. The information, targeting a subset of survey data, is based on unweighted responses received from owners or operators of oral health care practices with a physical location. For these reasons the results presented today are subject to change upon the final release.

With demand for oral health care services expected to rise, this study examines the proportion of practices that could have accommodated more patient visits in an average week during their last fiscal year (ending between April 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024), for select characteristics.

According to the provisional results released today, 62% of practices surveyed said they were able to accommodate additional patient visits. For practices with 100 or fewer weekly visits, 66% of them could have accommodated additional patients whereas 51% of practices with 201 or more weekly visits were in a similar position to accommodate more patients.

Oral health care practices that had longer wait times between the booking and the time of the appointment were less likely to have indicated that they could have accommodated additional patient visits. As wait times for existing patients increased, the likelihood of accommodating more patients decreased. For example, 83% of practices with wait times of less than a week could have accommodated more patients, whereas this capacity to accommodate more patients was 18% for practices with wait times of six months or more.

Future operational intentions were also correlated with the likeliness of respondents reporting that they could have accommodated additional patient visits. Over two-thirds (68%) of owners or operators of oral health care practices with intentions to expand operations reported that they could have accommodated additional patient visits compared with those who said they wanted to cease operations (50%), reduce operations (52%) or maintain operations in their current state (56%).

The oral health care industry experienced significant and negative economic impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic but has since rebounded. Additional changes are now expected to impact this industry as the CDCP is expected to potentially increase patient demand. These early results from the SOHCP provide an initial look at important factors that affect whether owners or operators of oral health care practices felt they could have accommodated more patients in a typical week. A more complete analysis, using final survey data adjusted to represent the whole population, will be published in winter 2024/2025.

Contact information

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).