Dental Services Funding and Affordability in Serbia – Decade-Long Perspective

Global awareness of growing demand for oral health care services became prominent over past several decades (1). Far reaching consequences of clinical dentistry for overall societal welfare were more obvious to the governing health authorities in mature market economies at first (2). Eastern European and Balkan health systems suffered from serious development setbacks during painful transitional health reforms taking place in the region since 1989 (3). Some of the core challenges across the region were temporary worsened insurance coverage in most countries of the region and huge contribution of out-of-pocket payments by ordinary citizens (4). As in somany areas of curative medicine, dental care was undergoing the same evolution. The early stages of this process were quite challenging for the regional health sector, and successful adaptation to the increasingly globalized health care market took many years to happen (5). Peculiarity of dental medicine is reflected in strong demand for frequent services, initiated by common acute disorders and adverse consequences of treatment procedures (6). Preventive and conservative dentistry in pediatric populations has significant long-term impact to the dental expenditure across the region (7). In some other areas, such as restorative dentistry, these issues are particularly prominent (8). In many transitional health systems, financial constraints worsened by global economic recession reflected heavily on dental care, imposing further narrowing of existing reimbursement practices as it happened in Bulgaria (9).