TABLE 3.

Estimates of Effects of Preventive Dental Care on Dental Care Use, Dental Care Expenses, and Out-of-Pocket Payments, for Participants With Dental Care Use: Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, 2002

Dental Care Use or Payments	Coefficient for Preventive Dental Care, b (SE)	Sample Size	R2
Total dental events
Log of number of events	0.176** (0.026)	4284	0.118
Log of expense	–0.328** (0.052)	4228	0.095
Log of out-of-pocket payments	–0.416** (0.063)	3906	0.051
Nonpreventive dental events
Log of number of events	–0.060* (0.030)	2094	0.085
Log of expense	–0.250** (0.065)	2064	0.071
Log of out-of-pocket payments	–0.279** (0.083)	1893	0.050

Note. The sample only includes full-year or part-year community-dwelling beneficiaries. The reference group for preventive dental care is beneficiaries with only nonpreventive dental care. Other covariates in the equations are: age dummies, male, race/ethnicity categories, income categories, education categories, marital status, household size, difficulty eating solid food because of teeth problems, health status, physical limitation categories, smoking status, dental coverage, and part-year community resident.

*P ≤ .05; **P ≤ .01.