Practice Management
Tate Harrington, DMD
PGY-2
NYU Langone Pediatric Dentistry
NYU Langone
Maricopa, Arizona, United States
Takish Ziad, BDS
Sun Life Health
Casa Grande, Arizona, United States
Daniel J. Kane, DMD, MA
Program Director
NYU Langone Hospitals
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify an association between patient insurance type, and their likelihood to schedule an emergency type appointment for a toothache (TA) at a community health center. It aims to help providers identify patient populations that are more likely to have emergency needs.
Methods: This is a retrospective study of patients aged 0-18 who have scheduled dental appointments at Sun Life Pediatric Dentistry for a 2-year period from 1/1/2020 to 12/31/2021. The data was then subdivided into types of insurance and analyzed for an association between insurance type and the need to schedule a TA type appointment.
Results: A total of 11,353 unique patient interactions were identified that met the inclusion criteria. 8462 (83.8%) of the patients were insured by AHCCCS, 24 (0.2%) by Medicare, 247 (2.4%) were uninsured, and 1365 (13.5%) carried PPO insurances. Of total interactions, 508 (4.5%) were TA appointments with 324 (77.1%) AHCCCS, 0 Medicare, 19 (4.5%) uninsured, and 77 (18.3%) PPO insurance.
Conclusion: Although patients insured with AHCCCS are the largest cohort throughout this study, the percentage of TA appointments that were completed by this group was significantly lower. In contrast, other insurance types took up a larger percentage of the TA appointments. This coincides with prior studies that access to care will lower the necessity to schedule a TA type appointment. More research needs to be done to determine if this finding is reproducible in other clinical situations, and if it maintains with more data points.