Altius Dental treats patients rather than selling to other businesses, so this map covers the groups your own site names: the practices it opens or buys, the associate and partner dentists and the hygienists it recruits, and the underserved and rural communities it chooses to serve. It covers Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, the three states on your careers page, and every number comes from public federal files.
Offices with paid employees, 2023. Oklahoma 1,370, New Mexico 680.
Of those, in non-metro Texas
Across the 168 Texas counties outside any metro area. A range, because the smallest counties are not published.
Texas counties with fewer than 3 dental offices
Too few offices with paid employees for the 2023 count to publish. 104 of them are non-metro.
Texas counties in a dental shortage area
Wholly or partly inside a designated area or population shortage area.
Who holds each relationship
Five groups. They count different things, offices in one row and people in another, so read each number on its own and never add them together.
Practices you could buy or partner with
Your about page says Altius has opened or purchased dozens of practices. On the owner side the relationship sits with the dentist who owns the practice. Texas has about 11,900 dental offices with paid employees, Oklahoma about 1,370 and New Mexico about 680. In Texas, about 8,980 of them, three in four, have fewer than 10 employees. Between 520 and 610 sit in the state's 168 non-metro counties, with at least 270 in non-metro Oklahoma and at least 120 in non-metro New Mexico. These are locations, not owners, and your own practices are among them.
Owners getting ready to retire
Your about page names the gap: rural providers retiring with no younger dentist coming in behind them. The relationship sits with the owner, and often their family. No honest public count. The federal files count offices, not the age or plans of the dentist who owns each one, so this row carries no number. Your own read on who is retiring is the better source here.
Associate and partner dentists
Your careers pages recruit general dentists for 45-plus practices and offer a partnership program after a first contract. The relationship sits with the dentist, and your own site quotes one who joined shortly after graduating. About 7,690 general dentists work on a payroll in Texas, about 1,150 in Oklahoma and about 660 in New Mexico. Owners who work for themselves are not in this count. Texas's non-metro areas hold about 430 of them across 5 of its 6 non-metro regions; the sixth region's figure is withheld.
Dental hygienists
Your careers menu lists hygienist openings beside dentist openings. The relationship sits with the hygienist. About 16,000 dental hygienists work on a payroll in Texas, about 2,750 in Oklahoma and about 1,400 in New Mexico. Texas's non-metro areas hold about 650, with one region's figure withheld.
Underserved and rural communities
Your mission is care for underserved and rural communities, and your about page describes patients, particularly Medicaid kids, traveling 45 minutes or more to see a dentist. Federal dental shortage designations mark those places. Texas has about 250 designated dental shortage areas for a geography or a low-income or Medicaid-eligible population, touching about 210 of its 254 counties. Oklahoma has 63, touching 63 of 77 counties, and New Mexico 32, touching 32 of 33.
Your seven regions, county by county
The towns on your careers page, placed in their counties. Each cell is banded on its own.
Metro counties carry most of the offices: Dallas County, where Lancaster sits, holds about 1,480 on its own, and Collin County, where McKinney sits, about 800. Amarillo spans Potter and Randall counties, and both are counted. Counties with fewer than three offices are not published, so each office count here is a floor. Three counties behind towns on your list fell below that line in the 2023 count: Franklin and Panola in Texas, and Choctaw in Oklahoma.
| Region | Towns listed | Counties | Dental offices | Offices outside metro counties | Counties in a shortage area |
|---|
| Panhandle Texas | 6 | 7 | 110 | 16 | 6 of 7 |
| Northeast Texas | 20 | 14 | 1,020 | 65 | 11 of 14 |
| Central Texas | 7 | 7 | 1,530 | 33 | 4 of 7 |
| South Coast Texas | 6 | 6 | 170 | 20 | 6 of 6 |
| West Texas | 5 | 4 | 300 | 7 | 4 of 4 |
| Oklahoma | 2 | 2 | 11 | 11 | 2 of 2 |
| New Mexico | 2 | 2 | 400 | 0 | 2 of 2 |
Where the openings are
The rural practice pool is small enough to know by name.
Between 520 and 610 dental offices sit in Texas's 168 non-metro counties, a list short enough to hold location by location rather than wait for practices to come to market. Three in four Texas offices have fewer than 10 employees.
Most rural Texas counties have fewer than three practices to buy.
104 of the 168 non-metro Texas counties have fewer than three dental offices with paid employees, too few for the federal count to publish. Where there is little to buy, growth leans on opening a practice, and an opening needs a dentist first.
The local hiring pool is thin.
Texas's non-metro regions employ about 430 general dentists and about 650 hygienists on a payroll, with one region withheld and owners who work for themselves left out. It is a small pool for two thirds of the state's counties, and your careers pages already lead with earnings, autonomy and visa sponsorship.
Denominators, definitions and sources
- Dental offices are establishments in the federal business register, 2023 county and state files, industry code for offices of dentists. An establishment is one physical location with payroll, so a group with ten locations counts ten times and a dentist with no employees does not count. Size is payroll employees at the location in mid-March 2023. The count predates any practice opened after 2023. The file publishes no county with fewer than three offices, so county and non-metro figures are floors, and the Texas range adds the offices the county rows leave out.
- Metro and non-metro follow the federal metro area list of July 2023. Micropolitan counties count as non-metro.
- Dentists and hygienists are from the federal occupational employment survey, May 2024, state and non-metro area files. The survey counts people on a payroll, rounded by the survey itself, and leaves out the self-employed. The Border Region of Texas withholds both figures.
- Shortage areas are dental designations with status Designated in the federal shortage area file, geographic, high needs geographic and low-income or Medicaid-eligible population types only. Facility designations such as health centers, rural clinics and prisons are left out of the county counts. A county counts once whether a designation covers all of it or some of its census tracts.
- Towns and regions are as listed on altiusdental.com on 30 Sep 2026, each placed in the county that holds it. Every figure is read directly from a named federal file; the dentist and hygienist figures are that survey's own estimates. Figures over 100 are rounded on purpose, and none is the size of any one opportunity. A segment with no credible public number says so here rather than showing one.