The Relationship between Periodontal Interventions and Healthcare Costs and Utilization. Evidence from an Integrated Dental, Medical, and Pharmacy Commercial Claims Database

Periodontal disease has been linked to poor glycemic control among individuals with type 2 diabetes. Using integrated dental, medical, and pharmacy commercial claims from Truven MarketScan (R) Research Databases, we implement inverse probability weighting and doubly robust methods to estimate a relationship between a periodontal intervention and healthcare costs and utilization. Among individuals newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, we find that a periodontal intervention is associated with lower total healthcare costs (-$1799), lower total medical costs excluding pharmacy costs (-$1577), and lower total type 2 diabetes-related healthcare costs (-$408). (c) 2016 The Authors. Health Economics Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.