Composite and PPE costs are still climbing — here's where the margin is actually leaking

Composite materials, PPE, and disposables have all seen steady cost increases over the past several years, and unlike the dramatic PPE price spikes of the pandemic era, this round has been gradual enough that many practices haven’t revisited their fee schedules to account for it. The result is a slow margin leak on routine procedures that’s easy to miss month to month and obvious only when reviewed over a full year.

Why the increases keep coming

Composite and bonding material costs track raw material and manufacturing input costs that have stayed elevated industry-wide, while PPE pricing — though well off pandemic peaks — has settled at a higher baseline than pre-2020 levels rather than fully reverting. Disposables (barriers, suction tips, single-use instruments) follow a similar pattern: a step up that became the new normal rather than a temporary spike.

Where practices actually lose the margin

The leak isn’t usually one dramatic price increase — it’s the accumulation of several small per-unit increases across composite, PPE, and disposables that together add real cost to a routine restorative procedure without any single supplier invoice looking alarming on its own. Practices that only review supply spend in aggregate (total monthly supply bill) rather than per-procedure miss exactly this kind of creeping cost.

What’s working to manage it

Group purchasing organizations and dental buying groups give smaller independent practices leverage closer to what DSO-affiliated practices get through scale purchasing — worth evaluating for practices not already in one. Standardizing on fewer composite shades and material brands across providers in a multi-dentist practice also reduces both unit cost (volume pricing) and waste from partially used materials that expire before they’re fully used.

Repricing without losing patients

Most practices find that a modest, regular fee adjustment tied to actual cost increases is better tolerated by patients than an occasional large jump that looks unexplained. Tying fee reviews to a fixed annual schedule — rather than reacting only when margin compression becomes obvious — keeps adjustments small and routine rather than dramatic.

Bottom line: supply cost increases since the pandemic have been gradual enough to hide in plain sight. Reviewing per-procedure cost annually, not just total supply spend, is what catches the leak before it compounds.