Oral Health Care Providers Retention Across ENC

Abstract

In the state of North Carolina (NC), an estimated 2.4 million residents in 2019 struggled to obtain adequate dental care, many of those fell into an underserved population subset. Dental care in North Carolina has historically struggled when compared to the rest of the country, and even further in Eastern NC (ENC) so much so that East Carolina University sought to build a dental school in 2006 to combat this issue. Despite a recent uptick in overall oral health care & quality, North Carolina still struggles to provide adequate dental care to an underserved population. For example, 27% of dentists participated in Medicare in North Carolina as opposed to the 42% nationwide average. In addition, out of existing free clinics serving uninsured patients across the state, only 27 out of 68 were able to provide some level of dental care to patients. This project and research focus aims to examine barriers and promoters for dentists to initiative movement as well as remain in ENC. It will also examine current in-play reasonable practices and perceptions around sliding scale fees, Medicare usage, and pro bono care for under and uninsured patients of ENC. This study will utilize qualitative methodology with purposeful sampling and surveying to identify practices and professionals within ENC and invite dentists to participate in brief semi-structured, audio-recorded interviews. An interview guide will be developed specifically for this study with input by faculty in the School of Dental Medicine for quality and appropriateness. Phone based recruitment and sampling will continue until theme saturation occurs. The sample goal is n=20 participants. Results from this study can be used to address existing barriers, support promoters and resources for dentists to come and stay in rural ENC as well as support improved access to oral care for under/uninsured patients. The lack of dentists in specifically ENC can make oral care even harder to access for resource limited patients across ENC. Poor oral health can lead to a decrease in overall body health and factors such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes: all which are elevated in rural and underserved areas. Increasing overall oral health can reduce not only oral health based afflictions, but also improve these areas of overall health for a limited resourced population. Understanding what extrinsic and intrinsic factors go into establishing dental retention is crucial to maintaining the health of these populations.