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Dental Services Use: Medicare Beneficiaries Experience Immediate And Long-Term Reductions After Enrollment.
- Source :
-
Health Affairs . Feb2023, Vol. 42 Issue 2, p286-295. 10p. - Publication Year :
- 2023
-
Abstract
- Traditional Medicare does not cover routine dental care, but little is known about transitions in dental outcomes upon reaching Medicare eligibility at age sixty-five. Using data from the 2010-19 Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys, we examined dental insurance, utilization, and outcomes among US adults before and after age sixty-five, using a regression discontinuity design and segmented regression analysis. Among 97,108 US adults representing a weighted population of 104,787,300 people, complete edentulism, or the loss of all teeth, increased by 4.8 percentage points at age sixty-five, and the percentage of people receiving restorative dental care decreased by 8.7 percentage points. Enrollment in Medicare Advantage, which may offer a dental benefit, was not associated with greater use of dental services relative to traditional Medicare, and Medicare Advantage enrollees had a significantly larger drop in dental spending from private insurance at age sixty-five than traditional Medicare enrollees. Expanding Medicare to cover dental services may help counteract these effects among all enrollees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *MEDICARE
*HEALTH policy
*DENTAL insurance
*CLINICAL trials
*CONFIDENCE intervals
*ORAL health
*RESEARCH methodology
*DENTAL care
*MEDICAL care costs
*REGRESSION analysis
*INTERVIEWING
*EXPERIENCE
*SURVEYS
*RESEARCH funding
*DESCRIPTIVE statistics
*ELIGIBILITY (Social aspects)
*DATA analysis software
*SENSITIVITY & specificity (Statistics)
*INSURANCE
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 02782715
- Volume :
- 42
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Health Affairs
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 161832716
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01899