Why is a federal plan needed now? Economic concerns are delaying treatments and examinations, as seen by 15% of parents currently delaying their children’s dental care and 25% also report they have delayed oral care in the past. About one-quarter of respondents (27%) say they will be delaying further dental treatments this year because of the current uncertain economic situation. The same proportion will be delaying regular check-ups or cleaning for the same reason. Close to that same number (22%) have delayed their appointments, waiting for the federal dental care program to be implemented. What kind of risks may arise with the implementation of a federal dental plan? Almost 60% of Canadians have heard about the federal government’s proposed investment to enhance dental care access, and 3 in 10 are aware of government dental programs in their province. But the support of a new plan drops from78% to 39%when the potential impact on existing employer-sponsored benefits is mentioned. Also, 80% of the people without dental coverage are less familiar with public programs but the ones accessing those provincial and territorial programs for children and seniors tend to be satisfied with their respective public coverage programs (66% satisfied and 30% neutral). Are staff shortages still impacting care? One in 10 Canadians report a dental appointment cancellation in the previous 2 months that was initiated by the dental office. Having a dentist or dental hygienist being on leave or out of office was the reason of the cancellation for 20% of cases, increasing by 16% since the previous survey. But only 1% of survey respondents were unable to book an appointment in the past 2 months. This AbacusWave 11 survey was conductedwith 3,000Canadians fromAugust 11 to 19, 2022. A random sample of panelists were invited to complete the survey froma set of partner panels based on the Lucid exchange platform.These partners are typically double opt-in survey panels, blended tomanage out potential skews in the data froma single source. Themargin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size is +/- 1.63%, 19 times out of 20.The data were weighted according to census data to ensure that the samplematchedCanada’s population according to age, gender, educational attainment, and region. 12 | 2022 | Issue 6 News and Events
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