The impact of insurance coverage on children's dental visits and expenditures, 1996.

BACKGROUND Health insurance coverage has been shown to relate positively with the use of dental services. The purpose of the authors' study was to describe the level of dental coverage among U.S. children and to assess the impact of dental coverage on children's use of dental services and expenditures for dental care. METHODS The focus of these analyses is on dental care coverage, use and expenditures for U.S. children during 1996. National estimates are provided for the population with dental coverage, the population with a dental visit, and mean total expenditure for each of several socioeconomic and demographic categories during 1996 using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. RESULTS Fifty-two percent of children younger than 18 years of age had private dental coverage during 1996. Approximately 56 percent of children in families with a poverty status level of 133 percent of the federal poverty level or below were covered by Medicaid during 1996. Fifty-six percent of children with private coverage had made at least one dental visit, compared with 28 percent of noncovered children. Twenty-eight percent of children covered by Medicaid had made at least one dental visit compared with 19 percent of noncovered children. CONCLUSION Medicaid dental coverage seems to have had a lesser effect on the likelihood of a child's having a dental visit than had private coverage. Improving oral health for poorer children may depend partly on improving the design of Medicaid dental coverage programs. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS By understanding these analyses, practitioners, advocates and policymakers will be better positioned to provide care, improve access and better meet the needs of all American children.