Emergency Department (ED) Utilization is a de facto provider for untreated dental issues. Understanding rural-urban differences in ED use for dental conditions in recent years is essential to inform federal, state and community-level dental health initiatives such as preventive dental care, tele-dentistry infrastructure expansion and oral hygiene practices. Ongoing national efforts addressing rural disparities in dental care should target individuals most at risk for missing preventive care and utilizing the ED for dental care.

Our study will examine rural-urban differences in treat and release ED utilization and costs for dental-related conditions. Results will be stratified by levels of rurality and by age using weighted estimates from the 2021 Nationwide Emergency Department Samples (NEDS) available through the Healthcare Costs and Utilization Project (HCUP) database. A treat and release ED dental visit will be defined as a visit where services were provided by dental conditions identified through International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) diagnosis codes. The metrics examined will include annual number of visits, annual number of visits per 100,000 people, total annual costs, individual visit costs and monthly number of visits.