A study evaluating the impact of dental office closures due to the pandemic on the share of dental conditions on hospital emergency departments (EDs) among Medicaid/CHIP-eligible children was presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the AADOCR, in conjunction with the 47th Annual Meeting of the CADR. The AADOCR/CADR Annual Meeting & Exhibition took place at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland on March 15-18, 2023.

Shulamite S. Huang of New York University led the study that analyzed 2018-2020 New York Medicaid claims data for trends in dental and dental-related medical care utilization among publicly insured children (N=3.2 million beneficiaries; n=2.6 million claims). A difference-in-differences approach was used to characterize the change in the dental-related ED burden before, during, and after dental office closures due to the pandemic across New York State.

After controlling for seasonality, an overall 30.3% increase (pThe study concluded that the lack of access to dental care during a time of significant healthcare system strain led to additional burden on EDs, and that future work is warranted to examine how to maintain dental care access during times of healthcare system strain.

Provided by
International Association for Dental Research