Dental Office Waste

Ever wonder what dental services consumers search for? FAIR Health offers an analysis

July 14, 2014
FAIR Health offers dentists a look into the minds of consumers regarding what dental procedures are most searched on the Internet because consumers want an idea of what those procedures will cost.
Meg Kaiser, Associate Editor

Prophylaxis. Root canal. Periodic evaluation, or porcelain/ceramic crowns. While these are basically part of a second language to dental professionals, consumers want to know more about what procedures are available to them, and how much these services are going to cost them.

Compiling that information in one central location is FAIR Health, a data company that serves the health-care system through data tools and education. That's a fancy way of saying they keep track of what consumers are searching for regarding their oral and systemic health, and are sharing their insightful findings with health-care professionals to guide them in their marketing and promotions.

FAIR recently announced the top 15 dental services for which health-care consumers most frequently look for cost information through the free FH Consumer Cost Lookup online tool. The new data cover the first two quarters of 2013 and the same period in 2014.

Robin Gelburd, president of FAIR Health, said, “Understanding the medical and dental services for which consumers are most in need of price information offers an important perspective on how patients are using the health-care system and how they are spending their health-care dollars,. As one of the earliest providers of health-care pricing data for consumers, we hope the data we released offer insights that can help stakeholders more accurately predict and respond to shifts in health-care service delivery and reimbursement.”

The cost estimates that FAIR Health offers consumers are based on the organization’s proprietary claims database of more than 17 billion billed medical and dental procedures. The top searched services represent those that were the most searched on FAIR Health’s consumer website, FH Consumer Cost Lookup, between January and June of 2013 and 2014. In addition to the Consumer Cost Lookup, the FAIR Health website offers a series of educational articles, videos and a glossary of insurance terms to help consumers understand the healthcare insurance reimbursement system.

Without further ado, here is the recently released list that will help you gain just a bit more insight into the mind of the consumer.

Meg Kaiser helps coordinate the e-newsletters Dental Assisting Digest, The Dentist-Lab Connection, and DE's Expert Tips and Tricks, and welcomes articles for the Practice Management, Dental Assisting, and Laboratory sections of DentistryIQ.com. Follow her on Twitter @mlkaiser.

About the Author

Meg Kaiser | Associate Editor

Meg Kaiser is an associate editor in Endeavor Business Media’s Dental Division. She works on DentistryIQ.com, RDH eVillage and RDH Graduate newsletters, Dental Economics magazine, and RDH magazine, and has for nearly 20 years. She knew she'd caught the dental bug when she began preaching oral-systemic health to everyone she met. Contact her at [email protected].