Patients’ Perspective on Their Experience of Dental Treatments Covered by Public Health Insurance in Romania—A Pilot Study

Abstract

Although the aims of any public health coverage are prevention, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, and maintenance, dental services are hardly ever included in services. The goal of our pilot study is to assess the perspective of a group of adult patients on their covered dental treatments. The present cross-sectional study was conducted on 140 patients who reported their perception by filling in a questionnaire. All the collected data were statistically analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 25. Most of the subjects (40.7%, n = 57) were treatment oriented, visiting the dentist only in an emergency situation. A total of 40.7% (n = 57) of the participants stated that all the dental treatments had coverage and 22.8% (n = 13) had to split their treatment plan because of the insurance budget limit. The subjects who had chosen covered dental services because they considered it was a right they should benefit from (53.7%, n = 22) and those who had chosen covered dental services because of financial reasons (29.3%, n = 12) were more frequently unsatisfied with the types of covered dental services. The reduced level of satisfaction was associated mainly with the list of dental procedures accepted for coverage and also with younger and highly educated patients. For a more accurate description, the present study should be completed by future studies not only on a representative population at national level, but also by assessing the perspective of dental professionals.