The Journal of the American College of Dentists
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Presently, 25.7% of the U. S. population is comprised of Blacks/African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. The dental school enrollment of underrepresented minorities (URM) does not reflect this demographic distribution. ⋯ In 1998, 4.7% of the college's first-year student enrollment was URMs. In 2001, 14.6% of Baylor's first-year student enrollment was URMs. Since 1995, BCD has retained 90.6% of its URM students.
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The many similarities between dentistry and dental education in 1920 between Canada and the United States continue to exist today. These have lead to parallel development of dental education and practice and to extensive sharing between the two countries. However, the provincial rather than national approach to education and health care in Canada has not facilitated national outcomes.
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A definition and introduction is provided for evidence-based dentistry and dental practice. The impact of this approach to providing care is traced for quality of care and professionalism. Policy implications are drawn and the impact of evidence-based dentistry for dental education and research are discussed.
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This paper discusses some basic economic principles and concepts and how they relate to the analysis of dental care delivery. The fundamental theories of consumer behavior, profit maximization, information and transaction costs, and agency are considered. It is asserted that the information gap existing between patients and providers gives rise to a principal-agent problem, the operative element of this paper. The authors conclude that while under managed fee-for-service (MFFS) delivery systems, third-party administrators use financial, administrative, and utilization management tools to guide consumer and provider behavior, to reduce the size of the information gap, and achieve a more efficient allocation of resources, this does not occur under direct reimbursement (DR).