Each year the provincial dental associations release their fee guide adjustments (see 2024 below).  Last year Ontario saw the largest increase in 25 years at an 8.5% increase.  Things have settled for 2024 at 4.8% but still the second highest I can recall in my nearly 28 years in the industry.  This is also more than double the annual trend we’d seen over the decades.

The fee guide increase is what drives the inflationary portion of claim costs.  This means that if your employees paid $100 for a service last year, the same service will cost $104.80 this year (on average – some codes are higher and others lower).  On top of that we also have trends and utilization that increase the final cost.  These are the effect we see over time for patients going into the dental office more often (like cleanings ever 3 months instead of 6) and for more things (like scaling units).  All put together we may see overall average increases of 7.5%.