Annually, almost one-quarter million U.S. adults, particularly those who do not have private insurance, seek dental care in emergency departments, or EDs, say researchers in the July issue of Annals of Emergency Medicine.
University of Washington researchers used nationally representative data from the 1997 to 2000 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys, a national probability sample survey of hospital ED visits, to study the frequency of dental-related ED visits by children and adults in the United States. They also investigated if patients making dental-related ED visits were more likely to rely on Medicaid or be uninsured than were patients making other ED visits.
During the four-year period, they found an estimated 2.95 million dental-related ED visits in the United States—an average of 738,000 visits annually. ED visits for dental complaints were highest in the 19- to 35-year-old group, accounting for 1.3 percent of all ED visits and 5.6 ED visits per 1,000 people in this age group.
Analyses revealed that the odds of visiting an ED for a dental complaint compared with other problems were significantly higher for patients who relied on Medicaid or were uninsured compared with those who had private insurance.
Researchers concluded that ED providers should be equipped to triage, diagnose, provide basic treatment and ensure appropriate follow-up care for dental problems, which may require enhancement of dental training for emergency medicine providers and improved dental care during and after ED visits.
