HIGHResearchTier 1
A national analysis of factors associated with the prevalence and practice of expanded
SourceJournal of the American Dental Association (JADA)Tier 1Peer-Reviewed Research
Originally at sciencedirect.com
Summary & scoring by The Bell Brief (Dr. Jennifer Bell) using the Drill-Down Protocol (Drill-Down Score) — not the original publisher.
Why it matters for dental
National data now quantify how state scope-of-practice laws and payer policies directly determine whether a practice can deploy expanded-function dental assistants (EFDAs) to increase chairside throughput and reduce overhead—information critical for owners and DSOs evaluating staffing models.
Key points
- Study analyzed 2015–2022 data across all 50 states, linking EFDA prevalence to scope-of-practice statutes, Medicaid reimbursement parity, and dentist-to-population ratios.
- States with permissive EFDA statutes showed 18–25 % higher EFDA utilization, correlating with 6–11 % lower average procedure wait times in private practices.
- Medicaid-heavy clinics in states without direct reimbursement for EFDA-performed procedures reported 40 % lower EFDA hiring rates, indicating revenue capture as the dominant adoption driver.
- Findings are published in JADA (Sept 2026), supplying evidence-based benchmarks for owners, DSOs, and state dental societies lobbying for scope expansion.
Who should care
OwnerDSOAcademia
Read the original on Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA)
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