The impact of national health insurance coverage on pit and fissure sealing experience

Introduction: The purpose of this study is to review the change of supplied amount of pit and fissure sealing (PFS) after including PFS into the list of coverage treatments in National Health Insurance (NHI), and to check out whether there is a difference of supplied amount among the area where the dental treatment accessibility is different based on data of Korean National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey(KNHANES).

Methods: The data year used as ‘before covered(BC)’was 2007, and that of ‘after covered(AC)’was 2012 when Nutritional Examination Survey was done. Data Analysis was used STATA 13.0 (Copyright Stata Corp LP, USA).

Results: Areas were classified as Urban and Rural. Reduction of Out-of-pocket expense according to NHI coverage PFS experience of 6 to 14-year-oldswas increased from 28.7% in BC to 34.9% in AC . PFS experience of 6 to 14-year-oldsin the urban area was increased from 29.2% in BC to 35.6% in AC, also the rural area was increased from 27.2% in BC to 31.5% in AC.

Conclusions: Although PFS supplying was increased after inclusion in NHI coverage, it is still insufficient to reduce DMFT index effectively. To reduce inequality, supply of PFS in rural area by community oral health program should be strengthened. And also, waiving out-of-pocket money for PFS in NHI should be considered.