Make Informed Decisions about Your State's Dental Benefits Programs

HPI works in close consultation with state Medicaid departments and other health organizations to provide customized and actionable data and insights related to dental care access. HPI's expert analyses is based on data provided by your state where possible, data compiled from other states that have implemented similar programs, and other data sources as needed. 

Collaborative projects have included estimates of adding an adult dental benefit under Medicaid for Virginia, Florida, Hawaii, and Maine – these states provided HPI data on Medicaid enrollment, dental spending, emergency department visits, and other factors to supplement HPI’s own sources. 

HPI has also conducted secret shopper surveys on behalf of state health departments, also using a combination of data provided by the state and other sources in the analysis. Secret shopper surveys to assess network adequacy are developed to meet your state’s specific needs.

HPI’s dental industry data is extensive, robust and based on a combination of:

• In-house data generated by HPI-designed surveys, including the annual Survey of Dental Practice and the quarterly Economic Outlook and Emerging Issues in Dentistry panel – in these two projects, dentists directly report on the issues affecting their dental practices. HPI has also surveyed dental consumers – including Medicaid beneficiaries – on their oral health status and interactions with the dental care system. HPI has also built an office database to track changes in dental practice structure.
• Publicly available data from government organizations and provider registries. HPI used a combination of the ADA masterfile and public sources such as U.S. Census Bureau to geo-locate dentists in relation to patients in every state and utilization data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. 
• Proprietary data such as private dental claims. HPI has analyzed dental claims to estimate the average reimbursement for Medicaid dental services as a percentage of dentist charges. (Data use limitations apply.)

HPI is a trusted resource concerning key issues related to the dental care section, formed by a team of health economists, health policy researchers, and data scientists. HPI’s independently led research team focuses on a variety of topics related to the U.S. dental industry, including the supply, distribution, and demographics of the dental workforce; Medicaid fees and reimbursement for dental care services; dentist participation in Medicaid; dental care utilization and expenditures; and more.

Check out the variety of work published by HPI, including interactive dashboards, research briefs, infographics, peer-reviewed journals articles, and webinars. See also a full list of HPI’s state-level data.