Safety net care and midlevel dental practitioners: A case study of the portion of care that might be performed under various setting and scope-of-practice assumptions

E. Phillips, A.E. Gwozdek and H.L. Shaefer

American Journal of Public Health, 2015, vol. 105, issue 9, 1770-1776

Abstract: Objectives. We sought to determine the proportion of dental care provided at safety net-type clinics that might be performed by midlevel practitioners. Methods. Data were obtained on 157 328 procedures performed in 2012 at the clinics associated with a Midwestern dental school. Based on procedure codes, we determined the overall proportion, as well as the proportion of visits and patients' care, that could have been performed by 3 types of practitioners. Results. Overall, 48% to 66% of all procedures could have been performed by a midlevel dental practitioner. Nearly half of all visits, and roughly a third of all patients, could have been entirely cared for by a practitioner trained in prophylaxis and with evaluation capabilities. Such practitioners could handle roughly 80% of the visits at the community-based clinic and more than half of the visits at the hospital-based clinic. Conclusions. A midlevel practitioner with training in prophylaxis has the potential to alleviate much of the burden on the dental safety net because much of the need among vulnerable populations falls well within their scope of practice.

Keywords: dental assistant; dental education; dental student; economics; female; health insurance; health services research; human; male; manpower; medicaid; public health service; safety net hospital; United States, Dental Auxiliaries; Dental Hygienists; Female; Humans; Insurance, Dental; Male; Medicaid; Organizational Case Studies; Public Health Dentistry; Safety-net Providers; Schools, Dental; Students, Dental; United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302715

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2015.302715_1

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2015.302715

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Alfredo Morabia

More articles in American Journal of Public Health from American Public Health Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().