The antibiotic prescribing habits of oral surgeons may be influenced by their level of experience, with those who have been practicing longer appearing more likely to prescribe them. The study was recently published in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.
Therefore, targeting efforts to improve appropriate prescribing toward more experienced oral and maxillofacial surgeons may lower overall antibiotic use, the authors wrote.
“Oral and maxillofacial surgeons who were earlier in their careers tended to prescribe fewer antibiotics than their more established colleagues,” wrote Lang Liang of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine (J Oral Maxillofac Surg, May 4, 2026), the study’s lead author.
Antibiotic resistance remains a major global public health concern. This study aimed to determine whether years in practice (YIP) were associated with antibiotic prescribing patterns among oral and maxillofacial surgeons treating Medicare beneficiaries using the 2022 Medicare Part D Prescribers Dataset. The study included 6,403 surgeons who accounted for 928,365 antibiotic claims in 2022 and had both oral and maxillofacial surgery specialty designations and available prescribing data, they wrote.
YIP was determined using U.S. National Provider Identifier enumeration dates and grouped into four categories: zero to three YIP, four to eight YIP, nine to 13 YIP, and 14 or more YIP. Further, the researchers evaluated antibiotic claims per beneficiary, total antibiotic claims, and antibiotic prescribing rates while considering surgeon sex, region, number of Medicare beneficiaries, and patient demographic and medical characteristics.
The overall cohort had a mean of one antibiotic claim per beneficiary, with a range of 0.7 to 1.3. Compared to surgeons with zero to three YIP, those with nine to 13 YIP (beta coefficient [b] = 0.08; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.02 to 0.14; p = 0.011) and 14 or more YIP (b = 0.14; 95% CI: 0.08 to 0.20; p < 0.001) prescribed significantly more antibiotics per beneficiary, they wrote.
Across all YIP categories, the top 10% of prescribers accounted for 28% to 32% of all antibiotic claims, with high-volume prescribers overall contributing nearly 30% of total claims. Higher-volume prescribers had a mean of 1.2 antibiotic claims per beneficiary (range: one to 1.4) compared to 0.9 claims per beneficiary (range: 0.6 to 1.2) among lower-volume prescribers, a statistically significant difference (p < 0.001).
The study had limitations. The data did not contain details about the specific procedures performed or the clinical reasons why antibiotics were prescribed, the authors added.
“These findings suggest that focusing antibiotic stewardship efforts on mid to late-career oral and maxillofacial surgeons and high-volume prescribers may help reduce overall antibiotic volume in the specialty,” Liang and colleagues concluded.
