Emergency and urgent dental visits among Medicaid enrollees from 2013 to 2017
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Emergency and urgent dental visits among Medicaid enrollees from 2013 to 2017 Rebekah Fiehn1, Ilya Okunev1, Mary Bayham1, Steven Barefoot2 and Eric P. Tranby1*
Abstract Background: Better understanding of the frequency of dental emergencies and the procedures performed during those emergency visits can help providers, insurers, and policymakers understand workforce and care provision needs. Methods: Procedures performed at an emergency dental encounter and in the encounter following that encounter are assessed. Emergency dental encounters are those with a CDT code of D0140, D0160, or D0170. Data was analyzed from the IBM Watson Medicaid Marketscan data from 2013 to 2017, a nationally representative dental and medical claims database from 13 deidentified states in the United States. Result: Consistently over time, about 10% of all dental encounters are due to a dental emergency. 28% of emergency dental encounters had no other procedure performed during those encounters. When other procedures were performed during the encounter, the majority were diagnostic in nature, primarily radiographs. Among patients who returned to the dentists following an emergency visit, 43% returned for more definitive dental treatment, most within 30 days. Conclusions: The majority of dental emergency encounters do not result in definitive treatment, rather patients often return to the dentist at a later date for that treatment. Where possible, dental providers could utilize teledental services to triage patients to appropriate care. Keywords: Emergency dental, COVID-19, Teledental, Medicaid Background It is important for health care systems to have a general understanding of what constitutes a dental emergency to ensure that patients have access to essential care and establish best practice pathways for determining appropriate care location. Providers need to understand the critical elements of administering emergency dental care, the factors which may influence patients to seek out care, and plan appropriately for triaging and treating emergency cases. However, there is a gap in research around dental emergencies in dental settings. The research *Correspondence: [email protected] 1 DentaQuest Partnership for Oral Health Advancement, 465 Medford Street, Boston, MA 02129, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
available in the United States has largely focused on pediatric dental emergencies including those originating from trauma [1, 2]. A study out of South Carolina found that just 9% of the after-hours pediatric dental emergencies analyzed needed referral to ED for treatment while the rest could be addressed in the dental setting. Additionally, the study found that there was significant variation in the treatment decisions partly due to unique provider characteristics (pediatric vs general) or practice settings [1]. Studies from outside of the US have mainly focused on the reasons for the emergency dental visit, with little emphasis on what happens follow
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