The effects of general anesthesia legislation on operating room visits by preschool children undergoing dental treatment

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of state-level general anesthesia (GA) legislation on operating room visits for the treatment of dental caries on preschool-aged children.

Methods: The North Carolina Ambulatory Surgery Discharge Database was used to observe GA visits for fiscal years (FY) 1997 to 2001. A pretest/post-test design with concurrent comparison groups was used for 2 analyses: (1) all children treated for dental caries were compared to those treated for otitis media; and (2) those whose treatment for dental caries was reimbursed by Medicaid were compared to those whose treatment for dental caries was not reimbursed by Medicaid.

Results: In the prelegislation period (FY 1997 and 1998), there were 3,857 GA visits for dental core and 21,038 for otitis media. Postlegislation (FY 2000 and 2001) dental visits increased to 5,511(43%), and otitis media visits increased to 22,279 (6%)-a statistically significant difference (P<.05). Before the legislation, there were 1,370 non-Medicaid dental visits and 2,487 Medicaid dental visits. Non-Medicaid and Medicaid dental visits postlegislation increased to 2,195 (60%) and 3,316 (33%), respectively. This difference was significant (P<.05).

Conclusions: General anesthesia legislation resulted in an increase in access to care for children needing dental care in North Carolina.