A Need-Based Model to Project National Dental Expenditures

A national model on need for dental treatment, as measured by the HANES survey of the National Center for Health Statistics, is described and applied to determine expenditures required to provide necessary dental services under third-party funding of a national dental program. Services have been divided into five components by type of service and age of the population and expenditures are projected for each year, 1980-84. Total expenditures are projected to increase from 18.98 billion dollars in 1980 to 26.42 billion in 1984. Separate projections are also provided for each component and each service. Expenditures derived from this model are compared to direct projections of trends taking place in the current dental care system. Only minor discrepancies in total expenditures are noted but there are large differences for individual services, notably in the areas of prevention and periodontal diseases. Separate comparisons with demand-based projections derived from the experience of the California Dental Service are also presented. Again, the major differences relate to expenditures for individual services, particularly crowns, for which demand expenditures outstripped need by a three-fold margin.