Chi-Chi Liao, MS, Department of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, 677 Huntington Ave, 7th floor, Boston, MA 02115, 617-987-0986, cliao@hsph.harvard.edu, Michael Lee Ganz, PhD, MS, Maternal & Child Health, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Kresge 615, Boston, MA 02115, and Hongyu Jiang, PhD, Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, 655 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115.

Dental care for children accounts for approximately one-quarter of U.S. dental spending and is a major component of child health care costs. Income and racial disparities in expenditures favor higher income children despite Medicaid coverage for lower income children. High levels of reported out-of-pocket costs for Medicaid eligible children suggest that Medicaid fails to meet families’ needs in obtaining care. Meeting the oral health needs of poor children will require considerably greater expenditures, particularly through improved Medicaid financing and administration. . The federal government has worked with state government on separate SCHIP programs, Medicaid expansions or combination of both programs to increase the coverage and also income level of eligibility for uninsured children. One focus of SCHIP is dental services for uninsured children.

This paper assesses the impact of SCHIP program implementation on general dental utilization, expenditures and source of funding for dental services for children using the 1996-2000 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey.

We have found that SCHIP implementation is associated with more frequent general dental visits controlling for family size, age of the child, mother’s education, payers and state level characteristics. Children eligible for SCHIP after SCHIP implementation have more general dental visits and higher expenditure than children with similar personal and state characteristics without SCHIP coverage before SCHIP implementation.

We conclude that SCHIP has successfully increased the general dental care utilization for uninsured kids under 200% Federal Poverty Line. SCHIP has more impact on the utilization of preventive, diagnostic and restorative dental services than orthodontist and other services.

Learning Objectives:

• To better understand how State Children Health Insurance Program impact on the utilization and expenditure for children dental care services

Keywords: Insurance-Related Barriers, Access to Health Care

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.