Evaluating True Barriers to Dental Care for Patients with Periodontal Disease

BACKGROUND: The cost of care is often reported as a primary reason why patients fail to seek dental treatment; however, this may not the only component. AIMS/OBJECTIVES: To examine an underserved population’s perspective on the importance of dental care and barriers they face to seek treatment. The effectiveness of compliance incentives, such as gift cards, was also examined. METHODS: We conducted a survey study to gain insight of an underserved population’s perspective of barriers to care and correlated the reported barriers with the true reasons of missed appointments in our study cohort. Appointment compliance was also examined before and after implementation of gift card incentives, appoitment reminder letters and additional staff. RESULTS: Most patients felt dental care was important/very important to them. However, no correlations were found between survey responses and true reasons for missing appointments. Eighty-seven percent of patients report having some form of financial difficulty and compliance statistically improved after implementation of financial compensation in this population (69% completed appointments before gift card implementation versus 75% after gift card implementation, p=0.01), but not after the implementation of additional appointment reminders and contact staff. DISCUSSION: Although the majority of patients reported dental care was important to them, there was an average of 31% missed appointments for patients who completed the survey and no correlations were found between the information patients reported and true reasons for non-compliance. Interestingly, even though care was free of charge, most patients reported to be in some form of financial difficulty and compliance was slightly improved through the implementation of financial compensation. Other potential barriers that need to be further examined include economic barriers, transportation, insurance utilization, and patient anxiety towards dental care. CONCLUSION: A survey is a resource to identify reasons why patients abstain from seeking care but may be not the best one as reasons reported do not correlate with true reasons of appointment failure. Financial compensation was shown to improve compliance with appointments. Further information gathering is necessary to gain insight into true barriers to dental care within an underserved population.