Children with Medicaid or CHIP are seeing the dentist more frequently, and the gap between their rate of dental visits and that of their privately insured counterparts is narrowing. The share of children age 0–18 with Medicaid or CHIP reporting a dental visit in the past 12 months increased from 38.5 percent in 2007 to 45.9 percent in 2013. The share of privately insured children who were reported to have had a dental visit in the past 12 months was higher, but it did not change during the same time period (56.9 percent in 2007; 57.1 percent in 2013).
This issue brief provides results using the National Health Interview Survey and the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey. The survey questions on dental care for our analyses are no longer included in these two surveys. Therefore, this issue brief will not be updated with more recent years of data.