Journal of Dental Research, Vol 64, 922-924, Copyright © 1985 by International & American Associations for Dental Research Online Journals
Economic specification of cost estimates in dental programs
N. J. Doherty and G. M. Crakes
This paper compares two approaches to the estimation of costs in dental
care programs: a conventional approach and an approach based on theoretical
expectations. The conventional approach typically uses a linear
extrapolation of an average figure - e.g., cost per visit - over various
program sizes and thus predicts constant costs. Constant costs are,
however, theoretically implausible, and it should be anticipated that their
use in program planning or analysis would generate biased estimates. This
hypothesis is examined using annual costs and visits from a group of
uniform clinics over a five-year period. Results show that costs calculated
by the conventional method are underestimated at low volumes and
increasingly over-estimated at higher volumes. The findings, which
illustrate how in-efficiency can inadvertently be incorporated into program
design, have implications for cost-effectiveness of dental care delivery in
the public sector.
