Oral health and dental care in Australia

Area of spending

The areas of spending in disease expenditure analysis include:

• hospital services: $94.0 billion (public and private admitted patient services, public hospital emergency departments and public hospital outpatient clinics)
• primary health care services: $41.4 billion (general practitioner services, allied health services, pharmaceuticals and dental)
• referred medical services: $14.7 billion (include specialist services, medical imaging and pathology (AIHW 2023).

In 2020–21, total dental expenditure was $11.1 billion, 7.4% of the total $150 billion allocated disease expenditure (AIHW 2023).

Explore the data further in Disease expenditure table 1.

Dental expenditure over time

Across all Burden of Disease groups, overall dental expenditure across the decade from 2011–12 to 2020–21 has increased from $8.3 billion in 2011–12 to $11.1 billion in 2020–21.

Explore the data using interactive 1 below.

Disease expenditure interactive 1: Dental expenditure, all Burden of Disease groups, Australia, current prices

Disease expenditure

Dental disease expenditure data presented in this section are derived from the AIHW Disease Expenditure Database. Expenditure is estimated by Australian Burden of Disease Study (ABDS) condition, age group and sex for:

• Public hospital admitted patients
• Public hospital emergency departments
• Public hospital outpatients
• Private hospital services
• Primary health care (general practitioners services, allied health and other services, pharmaceutical benefits scheme and dental expenditure)
• Referred medical service (specialist services, pathology and medical imaging).

All sources of funding, including patient co-payments, are included in spending estimates. Dental expenditure is not currently reported by age and sex in the AIHW Disease Expenditure Database (AIHW 2023).

In 2020–21:

• Dental expenditure, within the primary health care broad area of expenditure, accounts for most of the spending on oral disorders, $8.1 billion (88%).
• Oral disorders expenditure spent in areas other than dental expenditure ($1.1 billion) was highest for age groups 15–19 years ($123.0 million), 20–24 years ($106.7 million) and 5–9 years ($100.0 million) and was mostly spent in the hospital setting.
• Expenditure was $5.3 billion for dental caries, $3.0 billion for other oral disorders, and $898 million for periodontal disease.
• Dental caries ($5.3 billion) had the highest expenditure among all ABDS-listed conditions (excluding all ‘other’ conditions within groups).

Explore the data using the interactives below.

Disease Expenditure Interactive 2-3: Oral disorders and burden of disease expenditure by sex and age group

Expenditure in hospitals

Hospital services include public and private admitted patient services, public hospital emergency departments and public hospital outpatient clinics.

• Expenditure in hospitals on oral disorders was $1.0 billion in 2020–21, accounting for 1.1% of total hospital expenditure.
• In 2020–21, $600 million was spent in hospitals on other oral disorders. This spending included $277 million in private hospital services.

Expenditure in primary health care

Primary health care services include general practitioner services, allied health services, pharmaceuticals and dental.

• Expenditure in primary health care on oral disorders was $8.2 billion in 2020–21. As a disease group, Oral disorders accounted for the highest proportion of total spending on primary health care (20% or 1 in 5 services) – more than any other disease group.
• In 2020–21, $5.0 billion dollars was spent on dental caries in primary health care. The vast majority of this spending was in dental primary care services ($4.9 billion).

Expenditure in referred medical services

Referred medical services include specialist services, medical imaging and pathology.

• Expenditure in referred medical services on oral disorders was $22 million in 2020–21, accounting for 0.15% of total expenditure in referred medical services.
• In 2020–21, $20 million was spent on referred medical services for other oral disorders. Medical imaging accounted for $5.6 million of this spending.

Explore the data using the interactive below. 

Disease expenditure interactive 4: Oral disorders expenditure by area of expenditure, sex, Australia

Spending on oral disorders over time

Across all broad areas of expenditure, spending on oral disorders across the decade from 2011–12 to 2020–21 has shown an increase in expenditure from $6.8 billion in 2011–12 to $9.2 billion in 2020–21.

Explore the data using the interactive below.

Disease expenditure interactive 5: Spending on oral disorders, by area of expenditure, current prices

Health system spending per case of disease

Total spending across the health system on a particular disease or condition group is one measure of the financial burden due to disease and ill health. However, this does not give an indication of the relative number of people experiencing disease, or the amount spent on treating a single case. Total health spending for a condition may be high because treatments are expensive, or because the number of cases in the community is high (AIHW 2022).

The expenditure estimates used to derive the spending per case estimates come from Disease expenditure in Australia 2018-19 along with the Australian Burden of Disease Study prevalence estimates for 2018, and include spending on public and private hospitals, PBS pharmaceuticals, MBS services, and dental. This does not include some spending through private providers or the aged care system (AIHW 2022).

In 2018-19:

• The average health system spending per case for all oral disorders was $315.
• Health system spending per case due to dental caries was higher for males ($41) than females ($38).
• Health system spending per case due to periodontal disease was higher for females ($12) than males ($9).
• The average health system spending per case for lip and oral cavity cancer was $23,618.
• Health system spending per case for lip and oral cavity cancer was $23,707 for females and $21,755 for males.

Explore the data using the interactive below.

Disease expenditure interactive 6: Estimates of health system spending per case, by condition and sex, Australia

Health system spending for certain risk factors

Health risk factors are attributes, characteristics or exposures that increase the likelihood of a person developing a disease or health disorder. In many cases, individuals can modify risk factors such as tobacco smoking or alcohol use and they are distinct from other types of risk factors, such as genetic pre-dispositions. Expenditure due to modifiable risk factors in this report refers to health system spending on a burden of disease condition that can be attributed to people having a particular risk factor, for example, history of smoking (AIHW 2022). 

In 2018-19:

• $31.2 million (42%) of health system spending on lip and oral cavity cancer could be attributed to tobacco use as a risk factor.
• $20.2 million (27%) of health system spending on lip and oral cavity cancer could be attributed to Alcohol use as a risk factor.

Explore data further in Disease expenditure table 2