Open (your wallet) wide: Australians pay more for dental care than most OECD countries
Open (your wallet) wide: Australians pay more for dental care than most OECD countries
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Australia ranks well when it comes to total dental care expenditure. But a closer look at the numbers reveals that trips to the dentist are a luxury many people can’t afford. Australia spent $11.1bn on dental care in 2021–2022, ranking it sixth out of 31 OECD countries for per capita expenditure.
![[The relative contribution of government, voluntary healthcare payments and out-of-pocket payments for dental care in OECD countries in 2020.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/86b0bdcc0639ba5aafc7f2d11ea286ad90272736/0_0_2128_1225/master/2128.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
At first glance, that statistic seems pretty good. Dig deeper? Not so much. That’s because Australia performs very poorly on public funding of dental care, sliding to 23rd in the OECD, according to the Australian Dental Journal. Analysis in the journal, based on 2020 OECD data, found that about 60% of the $11.1bn comes from individual out-of-pocket expenses ($6.67bn). Health insurance accounts for $2.16bn, while the federal government chips in $1.3bn and state/territory governments about $1bn.
Experts say that because many people can’t afford a visit to the dentist, untreated dental decay and oral health problems are on the rise. So, which countries are doing better and how do they do it?. Poland’s government pays the highest relative contribution for dental care of all OECD countries, with a public scheme that covers 95% of the population, according to the World Health Organization. Routine and preventive oral health care, basic restorative procedures to treat existing dental decay, and more advanced curative oral health care (including X-rays, complex fillings, root canal treatment) are all available in the public health sector. Only rehabilitation oral health care (crowns and bridges, dentures, orthodontics, dental implants) are not part of health benefit packages.
