2010 Volume 53 Issue 5 Pages 517-524
The aim of this study was to investigate the percentage of various dental procedures in the total treatment time spent by the general dental practitioners at the Department of Dentistry, Toranomon Hospital. The dental treatments were classified into 14 categories: examination at the first appointment, periodontics, endodontics, resin composite restoration, inlay/onlay restoration, re-set, crown, bridge, denture, implant, oral surgery, temporo-mandibular joint dysfunction, bleaching, and others. These 14 categories were further classified into a total of 50 subitems. Eleven dentists measured the time taken to complete each procedure with a stopwatch while they treated their patients. After the 3-month investigation period, the total number of patients, and the total and average treatment time for the 50 items, were calculated. Furthermore, the Point/Time ratio (P/T ratio) was calculated to compare the rate of insurance fee to the average treatment time. The treatment time was 29,556min (28.7%) in periodontics, 9,274min (9.0%) in endodontics, and 16,083min (15.6%) in operative dentistry. The treatments in conservative dentistry (periodontics, endodontics, and operative dentistry) accounted for 53.3% of the total treatment time. The treatment time in descending order was scaling (21,677min, 21.0%), resin composite restoration (13,019min, 12.6%), examination at the first appointment (9,312min, 9.0%), periodontal disease treatment (4,276min, 4.1%), partial denture/full denture adjustment (3,938min, 3.8%), crown non-vital preparation of tooth crown+impression taking+bite taking+temporary crown (3,930min, 3.8%), and root canal treatment (3,725min, 3.6%). The time for scaling and resin composite restoration was the first- and second-largest among the various dental procedures. The dental procedures with the highest P/T ratio were hard resin bridge set (218.8), full denture set (171.6), and night guard set (170.1), and those with the lowest P/T ratio were crown metal core cavity preparation+impression taking (1.3), bridge metal core cavity preparation+impression taking (two abutments: 1.6), hard resin bridge trial (1.8), and root canal treatment (single root canal: 1.9). The P/T ratio is thought to be an index of the cost performance of the various dental procedures.
