Something to Chew On: Dental Cleanings and Chronic Disease

Our analytics team was recently asked to evaluate the correlation between dental cleanings and two chronic conditions—diabetes and coronary artery disease (CAD). These two conditions afflict about 17%¹ of the population and are consistently in the top cost drivers for plan sponsors. But it's not obvious whether something as simple (and relatively inexpensive) as a routine dental cleaning is related to serious and expensive chronic disease. Our analysis uncovered an interesting inverse relationship between the two.

Analysis

The Artemis data analytics team set out to compare how a population with diabetes and CAD that has a dental cleaning compares to a similar population without a cleaning. To do so they analyzed medical and dental claim-level details for a population of 2M total members. In this data set, roughly 94,000 members had a diabetes diagnosis and 8,000 members had a CAD diagnosis. The team further segmented this population between those with dental cleaning and those without. Here’s how it broke down for those diagnosed with diabetes:
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• 54% had no cleanings per year;
• 19% had one cleaning per year; and
• 28% had two or more cleanings per year.
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Similarly, we looked at the CAD population with dental benefits and found that:

• 57% of members had no cleanings per year;
• 17% had one cleaning per year; and
• 25% had two or more cleanings per year.

Then, the team wanted to see whether they could find a medical claims spend difference for those with and without dental cleanings. Using Artemis Health’s member-matching processes, we were able to connect the dental and medical files on a claims-level basis and measure the per member per year (PMPY) costs for each chronic condition for each of the three cohorts.

Findings

For both conditions, the results clearly show that members who had one or more dental cleanings in a year had lower medical spend than those who had none. Members with two or more dental cleanings also had lower PMPY spend than those who only had one, which indicates that more cleanings may be associated with lessened medical expense.

Diabetic members who received no dental cleanings spent:

• $2,745 more annually compared to their counterparts with two or more dental cleanings, and
• $827 more than their counterparts with one dental cleaning.

CAD members who received no dental cleanings spent:

• $11,186 more than their counterparts with two or more dental cleanings per year, and
• $5,537 more than their counterparts with one dental cleaning per year.

Connecting the dots leads to new insights

Our clients ask us great questions and push us to explore connections between datasets that are often hard to see and challenging to execute. This analysis is just one example of how we leverage our data expertise and market knowledge to help our clients make data-driven decisions. Interested in knowing more, or have a curiosity you’d like to explore? Reach out to artemis@nomihealth.com.

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¹“National Diabetes Statistics Report,” Diabetes, May 15, 2024, https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/php/data-research/index.html#:~:text=Among%20the%20U.S.%20population%20overall,Table%201a;%20Table%201b);

“What Is Coronary Heart Disease? | NHLBI, NIH,” NHLBI, NIH, December 20, 2023, https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/coronary-heart-disease#:~:text=Coronary%20heart%20disease%20is%20a,arteries%20within%20the%20heart%20muscle.

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