Dental services market in Poland and its impact on the health decisions of patients and doctors.

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to verify the impact of the current dental services market in Poland on the society decisions regarding dental treatment as well as to assess the differences in the valuation of commercial and public dental services. Study Design: In the first step 1,444 subjects including children, adults and elderly were subjected to a questionnaire survey to characterise them in terms of sex, age, place of residence and level of education, type of dental treatment used including services privately funded and reimbursed by the National Health Fund and the reasons of his/her decisions. In the second step we compared the results of the survey to the average price of commercial and reimbursed procedures to verified a possible correlations between them. The research tool was a questionnaire survey by the author. The questionnaires were distributed among randomly selected kindergartens, schools, workplaces, senior clubs, social care homes and random passers-by in the streets. Average prices of dental procedures were based on price lists of 12 commercial offices and National Health Fund's contract conditions for the reimbursed services. Regardless of the age, Poles are far more likely to use private dental care. The level of education affects the form of financing of the dental treatment of children. There is a large disproportion between the revenues of private and public dental offices providing the same dental services.