Did Expanded Dental Insurance Reduce Out-of-Pocket Expenditures on Dental Care among Older Adults in Korea? Interrupted Time-Series Analysis

Nam-Hee Kim, Se-Hwan Jung and Ichiro Kawachi
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Nam-Hee Kim: Department of Dental Hygiene, Wonju College of Medicine, Yonsei University, 20 Ilsan-ro, Wonju 26426, Korea
Se-Hwan Jung: Department of Preventive and Public Health Dentistry, College of Dentistry, Gangneung-Wonju National University & Research Institute of Oral Science, Gangneung-Wonju National University, Gangneung 25457, Korea
Ichiro Kawachi: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, 667 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 6, 1-9

Abstract: The Korean National Health Insurance extended its coverage to reduce the economic burden of receiving dentures and implants for older adults in 2012 and 2014, respectively. We examined whether the new policy resulted in reduced out-of-pocket dental care expenditure in the eligible population, specifically focusing on low-income adults. We used interrupted time-series analysis (ITSA), a quasi-experimental design, to identify the effects of the policy among persons aged 65 or older. Data were extracted from the Korea Health Panel Survey (KHP; 2008–2017). The main outcome was out-of-pocket expenditures on dental care. The ITSA showed that expenditures decreased annually by 4.5% (RR: 0.96, 95% CI: 0.95–0.96) between 2012 and 2014. However, expenditure increased by 7.8% (RR: 1.08, 95% CI: 1.07–1.08) after 2014. Dental insurance coverage did not contribute to reducing the out-of-pocket expenses for dentures among low-income adults, while coverage of dental implants led to an increase in dental expenditure.

Keywords: dental insurance; expenditures; interrupted time-series analysis; counterfactual condition; older adults; causal inference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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