188 - Ohio Pediatric Dentists Disproportionately Care for Medicaid Children

Purpose

Ohio ranks 2^nd worst in the United States for Medicaid dental utilization. Administrative, business, and personal barriers may preclude dentist participation in Medicaid. The objective of this study was to examine Medicaid participation in the primary dental care provider network within a subset of the Ohio Medicaid program.

Methods

This cross-sectional study from 2021-2022 used dental claims from Partners For Kids, a pediatric accountable care organization in western, central, and southern Ohio responsible for the healthcare delivered to Medicaid-enrolled children. Dental claims for children ages 0-18 were included. Age, procedure, and provider data were collected from the claims. Primary provider-level outcomes were number of children treated, number of children treated < 3 years old, and number of children ages 3-6. Analysis used Wilcoxon rank sum tests to compare general to pediatric dentists.

Results

From 2021-2022, 847 general dentists and 158 pediatric dentists treated 240,730 patients. The top 10% of providers overall treated 60% of children; the bottom 10% treated 0.07% of children. Of the top 10% of providers, 50% were pediatric dentists. Pediatric dentists treated significantly more children than general dentists overall (median=100 vs. 32, P < .001), < 3 years old (median=5 vs. 1, P < .001), and ages 3-6 (median=12 vs. 5, P < .001).

Conclusions

A large proportion of Medicaid-enrolled children were treated by a small proportion of dentists, and pediatric dentists treated proportionally more patients.

Acknowledgements: We would like to acknowledge Jodee McDaniel, RDH, MS, for her administrative assistance with this study. The data used for this analysis were made available through a Data Use Agreement with Partners For Kids, a pediatric accountable care organization established by Nationwide Children’s Hospital. The statements in this manuscript are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the view of Partners For Kids or Nationwide Children’s Hospital.


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