A positive correlation exists between insurance status and patient acceptance of prescribed treatment, a new pilot study (Journal of Dental Hygiene, Winter 2010, Vol. 84:1, pp. 16-23) conducted in the Savannah, GA, area has found.
Researchers extracted data about patients' age, gender, insurance status, and a tally of accepted and rejected procedures from a private dental office database.
Among their findings:
- The acceptance rate of dental exams by both the insured and uninsured was greater than 80%.
- The insured population had a 90% acceptance rate for an oral prophylaxis procedure, compared to 74.6% for the uninsured population.
- For radiographic procedures, insured patients had an acceptance rate that was 8.3% higher than those who were uninsured.
- Crowns, bridges, and dentures showed less difference in acceptance rates.
