Table 3.

Estimates of the effect of preventive dental care on dental care use, dental expense, and out of pocket payments for community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries with dental care use, 2002.

Dental Care Use or Payments	Coefficient for Preventive Dental Care	Sample Size	R2
Total dental events
Log of number of events	.176** (.026)	4284	.118
Log of expense	−.328** (.052)	4228	.095
Log of out of pocket payments	−.416** (.063)	3906	.051
Non-preventive dental events
Log of number of events	−.060* (.030)	2094	.085
Log of expense	−.250** (.065)	2064	.071
Log of out of pocket payments	−.279** (.083)	1893	.050

Source: 2002 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey community-based beneficiaries.

Note: The reference group for preventive dental care is beneficiaries with only non-preventive dental care. Other covariates in the equations include: age dummies, male, race/ethnicity categories, income categories, education categories, marital status, household size, teeth problems, health status, physical limitation categories, smoking status, dental coverage, and part year community resident. Estimated standard errors of the regression coefficient are in parentheses.

^*Indicates significant at the .05 level.

^**Indicates significant at the .01 level.