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Biomedical subjects

H Bailit

Publications and source records attributed to H Bailit.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Selling your practice at retirement. Are there problems ahead?

BACKGROUND: The dental work force is maturing as fewer dentists enter practice. In this article, the authors considered two questions: "Will demographic trends in the numbers of dentists leaving and entering practice place additional downward pressure on the value of dental practices?" and "How important is the sale of practices for retirement income?" METHODS: To address the first question, the authors estimated the number of retirees using 62 years as retirement age, and they projected the number of graduates using current trends of first-year enrollments. To address the second question, the authors used the ADA's 1995 Survey of Current Issues in Dentistry, which addressed dentists' retirement savings. RESULTS: The annual rate of dentists' retiring is projected to be 2.1 percent compared with 1 percent among dentists projected to graduate during the period of 2001-2020. Although dental practice value is 40 percent or more of practitioners' reported retirement savings, the majority of dentists report that they do not depend on the sale of their practices to finance their retirement. CONCLUSIONS: In the next 20 years, the number of retirees will grow faster than the number of graduates, exerting a downward pressure on the value of dental practices. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: To successfully plan for retirement, dentists need to carefully assess their target levels of retirement savings, the time of their retirement and their dependence on the sales of their practices.

Adult↗

Dental insurance, managed care and traditional practice.

BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW: The author examined the impact of trends in commercial insurance plans and their managed care products on the traditional fee-for-service solo or partnership model of dental practice. CONCLUSION: In response to rising dental expenditures, employers are passing on more costs of dental insurance to employees, dropping dental benefits altogether and moving from indemnity to managed care plans, mainly preferred provider organizations. These trends are likely to continue, resulting in fewer people with employer-based dental insurance coverage. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: These changes in dental insurance coverage are unlikely to challenge the traditional model of dental practice within the next five years, largely because of the growing decline in the supply of dental services and a lack of local market concentration of dental managed care companies.

Dentists↗

Managed care and dental education and research: should academicians be concerned?

This paper examines the restructuring of the delivery system resulting from managed care. As HMOs consolidate to a few large companies in urban areas, they put great pressure on medical providers to reduce their costs and excess delivery capacity. In this environment, academic health centers face serious problems, because HMOs are reluctant to pay their higher charges, and public educational subsidies are declining. Managed care is unlikely to have the same impact on dentistry. Although managed dental care is growing, most Americans will not be enrolled, since they do not have dental insurance. Also, the supply of dentists is starting to decline, increasing the relative demand for dental services. Managed care will have only a limited direct impact on most dental schools, but a significant indirect effect. As academic health center budgets are reduced, all health professional schools can expect to contribute to solving the financial problems of University hospitals and medical schools. The response of dental academicians to these challenges will determine the future of dental education and research for the next decade. Bold new initiatives are needed to find new sources of revenue to support educational and research programs.

Academic Medical Centers↗

The demand for dental health.

This study evaluates the determinants of demand for dental health in the context of an econometric model where dental health and dental care are jointly endogenous. The theoretical analysis is based on the application of economic theory to production activities occurring at the individual or household level. A number of hypotheses concerning the change in demand for home and market dental care with respect to price and income changes are posited and empirically tested. Additional hypotheses concerning the relation between dental care and dental health are also examined statistically while controlling for a variety of sociodemographic and economic factors. One of the key empirical findings is that the net price elasticity for dental services is quite low (-0.2) for this sample of individuals with high dental insurance coverage.

Dental Care↗

The quality of restorative dental care.

This study investigated the quality of restorative care in a group of health center employees. With limitations in sample size, representativeness of the sample, and methods of measuring quality clearly recognized, the results of the study suggest that significant improvements in the quality of amalgams, synthetic restorations, crowns, fixed partial denture abutments, and pontics will probably require advances in the science and technology of dentistry and modifications in the present system for delivering dental care. The impact of a quality review system is unlikely to affect the care provided by the majority of dentists. Quality review should play a role in monitoring the services fo the small percentage of dentists whose care is very inadequate. Admittedly, these conclusions are speculative and are not based on a large body of experimental information. Nevertheless, the evidence that is available is suggestive, and the development of a national policy to monitor the quality of dental care must consider what can be reasonably achieved with a quality assurance system.

Adolescent↗

Variation in dental occlusion and arches among Melanesians of Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea. II. Clinical variation, geographic microdifferentiation and synthesis.

Patterns of geographic microdifferentiation for dental occlusion and the size and shape of the dental arches are described for 14 villages on Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea. Occlusal variables, such as overjet, overbite, molar relationships, crowding or spacing, and malalignment vary less among villages than do arch length and width. Arch length and width decrease in size from north to south. The pattern of biological distance among villages for occlusal variables and arch size correspond poorly to anthropometric, linguistic, geographic and migrational distances. The value of occlusal variables and arch size for discriminating among populations, the biological interpretation of multivariate data and the objectives of research on geographic microdifferentiation are discussed.

Black People↗