Financial Access to Dental Care Through Health Insurance in Senegal

Costs of oral disease care are among the most expensive health care cost. In Senegal, more than 20% of most health insurance companies’ healthcare expenditure goes to dental care. A survey, which focused on the financial access to dental care through health insurance in Senegal, was carried out nationwide. The results show that 48.7% of surveyed heads of household have less than 50,000 FCFA monthly incomes, 41% of them have no knowledge of health insurance and only 14.3% are insured by mutual. While more than half of those mutual cover conservative care (51.2%) and extractions (53.5%), they do not for prostheses. Because health insurance partially covers dental care, whereas oral health care are very expensive, insurers and dental surgeons must join forces to contain the expenditure through awareness of community solidarity.