The effects of general anesthesia legislation on operating room visits by preschool children undergoing dental treatment

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of state-level general anesthesia (GA) legislation on operating room visits for the treatment of dental caries on preschool-aged children. Methods: The North Carolina Ambulatory Surgery Discharge Database was used to observe GA visits for fiscal years (FY) 7997 to 2001. A pretest/post-test design with concurrent comparison groups was used for 2 analyses: (7) all children treated for dental caries were compared to those treated for otitis media; and (2) those whose treatment for dental caries was reimbursed by Medicaid were compared to those whose treatment for dental caries was not reimbursed by Medicaid. Results: In the prelegislation period (FY 7997 and 7998), there were 3,857 GA visits for dental core and 27,038 for otitis media. Postlegislation (FY 2000 and 2007) dental visits increased to 5,517 (43%), and otitis medic visits increased to 22,279 (6%)-a statistically significant difference (P <.05). Before the legislation, there were 7,370 non-Medicaid dental visits and 2,487 Medicaid dental visits. Non-Medicaid and Medicaid dental visits postlegislation increased to 2,195 (60%) and 3,375 (33%), respectively. This difference was significant (P <.05). Conclusions. General anesthesia legislation resulted in an increase in access to care for children needing dental care in North Carolina.