Faculty Bibliography

BACKGROUND:Previous study results have indicated that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance expansion for dependents (called the dependent coverage expansion) also led to a dental insurance expansion for dependents. In this study, the author examines whether this expansion is due to changes in employer-sponsored dental insurance. METHODS:The author compared enrollment and oral health care use between 2 groups of young adults in employer-sponsored dental plans managed by Delta Dental of Michigan before and after the initial implementation of the ACA: adults aged 20 through 24 years (eligible for the expansion) and adults aged 30 through 34 years (ineligible). RESULTS:The ACA dependent coverage expansion led to an increase in both dental plan enrollment rates (5.38%; P < .01) and oral health care use rates (3.57%; P < .1) among adults aged 20 through 24 years relative to adults aged 30 through 34 years. CONCLUSIONS:Although the ACA's dependent coverage expansion led to an increase in dental plan enrollment and oral health care use in Michigan, the effects seen by other insurers and states are yet to be determined, although the direction likely is similar. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS/CONCLUSIONS:This study's results suggest that employers responded to the ACA dependent coverage expansion by expanding dependent oral health care coverage.

Despite significant financial, training, and program investments, US children's caries experience and inequities continued to increase over the last 20 years. We posit that (1) dental insurance payment systems are not aligned with the current best evidence, exacerbating inequities, and (2) system redesign could meet health care's triple aim and reduce children's caries by 80%. On the basis of 2013 to 2016 Medicaid and private payment rates and the caries prevention literature, we find that effective preventive interventions are either (1) consistently compensated less than ineffective interventions or (2) not compensated at all. This economic and clinical misalignment may account for underuse of effective caries prevention and subsequent overuse of restorative care. We propose universal school-based comprehensive caries prevention to address this misalignment. Preliminary modeling suggests that universal caries prevention could eliminate 80% of children's caries and cost less than one fifth of current Medicaid children's oral health spending. If implemented with bundled payments based on cycle of care and measurable outcomes, there would be an alignment of incentives, best evidence, care, and outcomes. Such a program would meet the Healthy People Oral Health goals for children, as well as health care's triple aim.