During the pandemic, U.S. hospitals saw a 62% surge in emergency visits for kids’ dental conditions

U.S. researchers want the healthcare community to learn from past mistakes in case of future pandemics. One key finding from a new study is that dental office closures during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a 62 per cent increase in emergency visits for children’s dental conditions.

“Emergency departments are not well equipped to treat dental conditions, as they are typically limited to relieving pain and referring patients to dentists to address the underlying issues,” said Shulamite Huang, a health economist and assistant professor of epidemiology and health promotion at NYU College of Dentistry.

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“The sizable changes in the emergency department dental care of very young children suggest that this population was likely to fall through holes in the dental safety net.” Shulamite Huang.

Backed by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, the study, published in Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians Open, led by researchers at NYU College of Dentistry, examined Medicaid claims data from 2018 to 2020 for children under the age of 19 in New York state.

Researchers found that dental practice closures from March through May 2020 led to a 62 per cent increase in the share of children’s emergency room visits for non-traumatic dental issues. The proportion of ER visits related to dental issues rose from 3.7 per cent in 2019 to six per cent in 2020.

“The sizable changes in the emergency department dental care of very young children suggest that this population was likely to fall through holes in the dental safety net,” said Huang. “Although dentists were allowed to treat dental emergencies, Medicaid-insured children may have had difficulty accessing care during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Other options for emergency dental care

For Huang, visiting the emergency department for tooth pain can be a “waste of healthcare system resources” at a time when those resources were “in short supply during times of crisis, including the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

NYU researchers are encouraging health systems to consider options for emergency dental care that can divert patients from the emergency department, including offering limited hospital-based dental services or incorporating urgent dental care clinics within hospitals.

Most importantly, the researchers emphasized that ensuring children covered by Medicaid have access to a dentist in their community could prevent painful dental issues and provide them with emergency dental care when needed.

According to October 2024 enrollment data, children make up an estimated 47.4 per cent of the 79,308,002 people enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) across the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The impact of the pandemic on dental care was not limited to the U.S. In Canada, nearly 20 per cent of those who needed dental care had their appointments delayed, rescheduled, or canceled due to COVID-19. Additionally, 33.2 per cent of Canadians experiencing dental pain avoided seeking care out of fear of contracting the virus, and 5.8 per cent of those who needed dental treatment in the previous year did not receive it.