"The Effect of Public Insurance Coverage and Provider Reimbursement on Access to Dental Care," Lara Shore-Sheppard, Williams College, October 6, 3:40 pm - 5:00 pm, 368A Heady Hall

Lara Shore-Sheppard is Professor of Economics at Williams College and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Much of Shore-Sheppard's work has focused on assessing the impact of publicly-provided health insurance for low-income children, focusing particularly on the interaction between public insurance and private insurance, cash welfare programs, and employment. Her research on social policy has been published in Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Public Economics, and Review of Economics and Statistics, among other outlets. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Agriculture, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She is spending this year as a visiting researcher at the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University.

Abstract: Tooth decay is the most common chronic disease among children and there are large income-related disparities in access to dental care.  Recent changes in public insurance programs covering dental care for low-income children, including expansions in eligibility, changes in program design, and improvements in provider reimbursement rates have the potential to reduce these disparities. In this paper, we combine newly collected data on the design and implementation of state programs and levels of state dental reimbursement rates with dental care utilization data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine the impact of public health insurance program design on children’s access to dental care.  First, we investigate the effect of expanded public insurance on the probability a child has an annual dental visit and on the total number of visits per year.  Then, we consider how effect of public insurance coverage on dental utilization varies according to provider reimbursement rates.