The Changing Face of Dentistry: Perspectives on Trends in Practice Structure and Organization.

This perspective is intended to stimulate thoughts by clinicians, researchers, and educators about needed trends to the dental profession. With consideration of changes needed within the dental profession, improvements and implementation of diagnostic coding and value-based care could result in improved oral health for numerous Americans.

Increased public reimbursement for prophylactic visits with dentists associated with increased receipt of preventive dental services in children.

Objective: To determine whether higher reimbursement for children's preventive dentistry correlates with greater utilization of preventive dental care.

Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of National Survey of Children's Health 2011/2012 was conducted, combined with state Medicaid reimbursement rates for preventive dentistry. Analyses included prevalence, unadjusted odds ratios, and multivariable logistic regression for receipt of preventive dental services.

Evaluating components of dental care utilization among adults with diabetes and matched controls via hurdle models.

Background: About one-third of adults with diabetes have severe oral complications. However, limited previous research has investigated dental care utilization associated with diabetes. This project had two purposes: to develop a methodology to estimate dental care utilization using claims data and to use this methodology to compare utilization of dental care between adults with and without diabetes.