Dental Utilization and Expenditures, U.S. Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population Aged 2 and Older, 2019–2021

Excerpt

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the already low utilization of oral healthcare services across the United States. In 2018, less than half (46.2%) of Americans age 2 and older used the oral healthcare system. Costs have long been recognized as a key barrier to timely dental treatment. Healthcare utilization, specifically for routine health services early in the pandemic, was substantially reduced compared to pre-pandemic trends.

In this Statistical Brief, we compare dental service utilization and expenditures for the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population aged 2 and older from 2019 through 2021. These data were obtained from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) 2019–2021 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component (MEPS– HC). We present data on patients with dental visits, and we highlight differences in dental utilization and expenditures by age, as well as trends in dental visits by month, comparing 2019–2021. All differences discussed in the text are statistically significant at the 0.05 level unless otherwise noted.

Note that all healthcare utilization in the MEPS is reported by household respondents, and medical expenditures associated with dental events are not verified using administrative records. Although the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic created concerns about reporting accuracy, due to the impacts on MEPS field operations, changes in response mode, and lower response rates, analyses indicate that these changes did not adversely affect the quality of reporting on healthcare use in MEPS.