Patients may not only be willing to attend an initial dental consultation or review via video, but they may also be willing to pay what they would if they attended in-person visits. The study was published recently in the International Dental Journal.
Furthermore, age and gender may be factors that affect patients' willingness to accept and pay for teledentistry, the authors wrote.
"Majority of patients were willing to undergo and pay at least in-person costs for video reviews compared to video consults," wrote the authors, led by Rahul Nair, a doctoral candidate, of Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands (Int Dent J, March 25, 2025, Vol. 75:3, pp. 1599-1607).
During the COVID-19 pandemic, teledentistry gained in popularity as a safe way for individuals to access care. Currently, it is used as another strategy to triage and assess the urgency of dental care in urban settings. Despite its benefits, there are barriers, including acceptability by patients. Although there are studies showing that patients accepted this model during the pandemic, few have looked at it after COVID-19, according to the study.
To measure patients' willingness to attend and pay for teledentistry, a cross-sectional study including 597 patients was conducted. Patients' acceptance of video consultations and reviews were compared using statistical tests, and a valuation method with random starting points was used to elicit patients' willingness to pay.
Of the patients, about 54% were willing to have an initial dental consultation via a video call, and about 71% were willing to have a video review, the authors wrote.
When it came to acceptance of teledentistry, older patients were less likely to accept it. Meanwhile, acceptance was higher among those with higher levels of education (adjusted odds ratio, 3.63; 95% CI = 2.16 to 6.15 for video reviews for university graduates), they wrote.
The proportion of patients willing to pay at least the equivalent of in-person dental visit costs was higher for reviews (79.6%) compared to consultations (15.2%), the authors wrote.
Nevertheless, the study had limitations, including that patients who reported being unwilling to pay for teledentistry were not asked for a reason, they wrote.
"Younger age and higher education levels were associated with a higher willingness to accept video consults and reviews, and a higher WTP (willing to pay) at least the equivalent in-person costs for video reviews," Nair and colleagues wrote.
