Dental services market in Poland and its impact on the health decisions of patients and doctors

Authors:

ABSTRACT

Aim

The aim of the paper is to verify the impact of the current dental services market in Poland on the society decisions regarding dental treatment as well as to assess the differences in the valuation of commercial and public dental services.

Methods

Study Design: In the first step 1,444 subjects including children, adults and elderly were subjected to a questionnaire survey to characterise them in terms of sex, age, place of residence and level of education, type of dental treatment used including services privately funded and reimbursed by the National Health Fund and the reasons of his/her decisions. In the second step we compared the results of the survey to the average price of commercial and reimbursed procedures to verified a possible correlations between them. The research tool was a questionnaire survey by the author. The questionnaires were distributed among randomly selected kindergartens, schools, workplaces, senior clubs, social care homes and random passers-by in the streets. Average prices of dental procedures were based on price lists of 12 commercial offices and National Health Fund’s contract conditions for the reimbursed services.

Results

Dental treatment solely financed privately has been chosen by 35% of people aged under 18. The main reason for the choice of privately funded dental treatment was a long waiting time for a visit reimbursed from public funds. The largest difference in prices for the commercial and public services exists for the endodontic treatment (125 EUR). Statistics: Pearson’s chi-square test and the HR were used to verify the relationship between nominal and order variables. The study of the causes and the relationship between the method of financing the treatment and other variables was carried out in the first step based on one-way logistic regression analysis. The p value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Conclusion

Regardless of the age, Poles are far more likely to use private dental care. The level of education affects the form of financing of the dental treatment of children. There is a large disproportion between the revenues of private and public dental offices providing the same dental services.

PLUMX METRICS