Practice patterns among male and female general dentists in a Washington State population.

Background: Women make up about 14 percent of general dentists in the United States, and the proportion is projected to exceed 29 percent by 2020.

Methods: The authors obtained dental benefits claims data from the Washington Dental Service (WDS), Seattle, and used them to examine the practice patterns of 265 women and 1,947 men engaged in general dentistry for at least 26 days in 2001. Practice variables of interest included age, days worked, procedures performed and total income from WDS reimbursements and patient copayments.

Patterns of oral care in dental school and general dental practice.

This study compared patterns of oral care provided by predoctoral dental students for patients seeking treatment at the University of Washington (UW) with patterns reported for general dental offices by the Washington Dental Service (WDS). Dental care included about 5 million services provided to 880,317 patients by 2,803 WDS general dentists and about 45,600 dental services provided to 9,488 patients by 155 UW dental students during 1999. There was high fidelity between databases and randomly surveyed patient records for treatment provided in both UW (95 percent) and WDS (97 percent) populations.

Patterns of oral care in a Washington State dental service population.

Background: The authors compare patterns of oral health care reported by the Washington Dental Service, or WDS, Seattle, in 1993 and 1999 to assess changes in patient populations, practice characteristics, procedures and treatment costs in the state.

Methods: Data were obtained from dental benefits claims from a population of about 1.25 million people.