Out-of-Pocket Costs in the Private and the Public Sector in Dentistry: A Comparative Study

Authors

  • M. Meenal
  • Sunayana Manipal
  • Prabu Duraisamy
  • Preethi Adusumilli
  • M. A. Adil Ahmed

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37591/rrjod.v4i1.1058

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the out-of-pocket expenses for an adult population provided by private and public sector dentists. Data was collected from 250 adults presenting to government dental hospitals and 250 adults presenting to private dental clinics across Chennai for their dental care. Questionnaire data covered sociodemographic background, socio-economic status, dental care utilization, marginal time cost estimates, fees spent, traveling cost for the dental care and the satisfaction of the treatment provided. The overall time taken to travel and in waiting in the private sector was less than 15 min (67%) and nearly 30 min (44%) in the public sector. In both the sectors, the maximum number of people (around 70%) felt that time involved in treatment given by dentist was around 15–59 min. On average, private sector patients were spending INR 5488.2 for dental care every year. As the public sector dental hospital works with the support of government, none of the patients was charged with fee. Hence the patients in the private sector had higher out-of-pocket costs than the public sector. The total costs of dental care in the private sector in a year were 50 times greater than the cost spent by the patients in public sector. The observed cost differences between the two sectors may indicate that private practitioners cost more than the public hospital but the loss of pay for the private sector patients is more when compared to public sector patients. On the other hand, patients in both the sectors were satisfied with the treatment given by their dentists and also most of them felt that their oral health has improved after their dental care.

 

Keywords: Out-of-pocket costs, dental treatment, fees, loss of pay

Downloads

Published

2019-03-28

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2013)

Section

Research Article

License

Declaration and Copyright Transfer Form

(to be completed by authors)

I/ We, the undersigned author(s) of the submitted manuscript, hereby declare, that the above manuscript which is submitted for publication in the STM Journals(s), is not published already in part or whole (except in the form of abstract) in any journal or magazine for private or public circulation, and, is not under consideration of publication elsewhere.

  • I/We will not withdraw the manuscript after 1 week of submission as I have read the Author Guidelines and will adhere to the guidelines.
  • I/We Author(s ) have niether given nor will give this manuscript elsewhere for publishing after submitting in STM Journal(s).
  • I/ We have read the original version of the manuscript and am/ are responsible for the thought contents embodied in it. The work dealt in the manuscript is my/ our own, and my/ our individual contribution to this work is significant enough to qualify for authorship.
  •  I/We also agree to the authorship of the article in the following order:

Author’s name                                    

 

1. ________________

2. ________________

3. ________________

4. ________________

 

We  Author(s) tick this box and would request you to consider it as our signature as we agree to the terms of this Copyright Notice, which will apply to this submission if and when it is published by this journal.