Acta Universitatis Danubius. Œconomica, Vol 9, No 1 (2013)

Abstract

This presentation aims to describe the structure and treatments supplied by oro-dental providers (dentists) working within the social health (publicly funded) insurance scheme in Galati county for 0-18 year-olds over a four year period. Galati County is representative of Romania in terms of its population demographics, the number of inhabitants and the need for social oro-dental care. Data on activity were collected from the treatment and activity records of the dentists who provided care within the national health insurance scheme. It provides an overview of the current state of publicly funded dental care for 0 - 18 year-olds. As the data were consolidated and no patients could be identified from the data, it was deemed unnecessary to seek ethics approval for the study. The number of dentists (117) working for the public insurance scheme remained constant over the four years period. Eighty percent of the work that they performed on 0-18 year-olds involved active treatment of teeth (fillings, etc). Those who work for the National Health Insurance scheme are limited to the provision of care and treatment within a maximum of 200 Euros per month in fees and within this ceiling have limited capacity to provide services.