Medicaid-enrolled adults above and below 138 percent of the federal poverty level, regardless of race or ethnicity, were less likely than privately insured adults to have had a dental visit in the past year. However, they had better access to oral health services than uninsured adults. In addition, Medicaid-enrolled and uninsured adults reported lower levels of dental insurance coverage and used fewer services than their privately insured counterparts.
This issue brief provides results using the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey (MEPS-HC). Many of the survey questions on oral health services are no longer included in MEPS-HC, so this issue brief will not be updated with more recent years of data. More up-to-date estimates of oral health services use were published in the Access in Brief: Adults’ Experiences in Obtaining Medical Care.