Access to Dental Service of the Insured in Thailand in B.E. 2559

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the access to dental services as well as dental health benefits among the insured people compared to the other groups of health insurance schemes; including their reasons for declining the dental service rights and the cost of services. Data from the the National Statistics Office’s Health and Welfare Survey in 2016 were used. The analysis results revealed that 10.2% of the insured had access to dental services, and received the services more from private sector than the government sector. Moreover, the access to dental services was correlated with the wealth status. The main reasons that the insured did not use their dental service rights were because of “slow service and long waiting time”, followed by non-coverage in their dental health service benefits. It was found that 36.6% of those who got access to dental service did not use their insurance benefits; and those who claimed thier benefit had to pay for the additional cost on top of the right that they could reimburse. Even though the insured people had freedom to choose their health service providers, the “slow service and long waiting time”, and “uncov-ered benefits by the insurance” had prevented them from getting access to the dental services. With the new policy intervention introduced in 2016 to increase the cost coverage of their dental services up to 900 baht and the assignment of service providers instead of the clients to claim the cost of services from Social Security Office, further studies should be conducted to monitor the changes of access to dental services among the insured people as well as the out-of-pocket cost of dental services in order to re-adjust the dental health benefits to be the most suitable for these people.