How often do Americans go to the dentist?
Most do go, but many don't go frequently enough and there remains a stubborn minority that doesn't go at all for a variety of reasons.
Among parents with children covered by private insurance, 69 percent report that their children have visited the dentist every six months in recent years, while 18 percent reported that their child received tooth care once a year.
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Only 12.8 percent reported that their kids either visited the dentist less frequently or not at all.
Those with kids enrolled in Medicaid were less likely to report a recent dentist visit.
Fifty percent reported their children go to the dentist every six months, while just over a quarter say they go once a year.
Over 20 percent say their children haven't visited the dentist in more than a year.
Adults appear to be much less attentive to their own dental care than that of their offspring.
More than a fifth of adults with private insurance reported not going to the dentist in recent years, while 11 percent said they go every two to three years.
Among those with Medicaid, 30 percent reported no visits to the dentist in recent years, while 4 percent said they had gone in the past few years.
When asked to assess their future plans for dental care, 83 percent of adults with private insurance said they planned to visit in the dentist in the next 12 months.
Among Medicaid beneficiaries, two-thirds of those who live in states that provide adult dental care benefits said they were planning to visit, compared to 79.5 percent of those who live in states in which Medicaid does not cover dental care.
The counter-intuitive findings may be due to the survey's relatively low sample size for each group.
Between 2000 and 2011, the percentage of adults with private dental insurance declined, either because employers were cutting the benefit from their health plans or because individuals were opting out of it.
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