Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Key Takeaways
- Employee dental benefits, including dental insurance, can reduce an important financial barrier to care, but coverage alone does not guarantee that employees will make it to the dentist.
- Among working-age adults with private dental insurance, 53% had at least one dental visit in 2023, according to the American Dental Association’s Health Policy Institute.1
- Practical barriers matter. Convenient appointment times and locations, transportation, and inflexible work hours can all affect access to dental care.2,3
- Employers can think beyond benefit availability and consider the “last mile”: what it actually takes for an employee to turn a benefit into care.
- Bringing dental care closer to employees, including through workplace dental services, can help address some of the real-world barriers that stand between coverage and care.
Employee Dental Benefits Can Look Great on Paper and Still Be Hard to Use
In logistics, the “last mile” is the final stage of getting something to its destination.
It sounds simple. The product has already traveled most of the way. But that final stretch can be one of the most important parts of the entire journey.
Employee dental benefits can have a last-mile problem, too. With dental benefits, the last mile is the gap between having coverage and actually sitting in a dental chair.
An employer can offer a strong dental plan. An employee can enroll. The plan can cover preventative care. But there are still several steps between having the benefit and receiving the care.
The employee has to find a provider. Find an appointment that works. Leave work. Travel to the dental office. Receive care. Travel back. And, depending on their job, they may need to coordinate coverage for their shift, use paid time off, or make up lost time.
Every additional step creates another opportunity for care to be delayed.
That is the last mile of dental benefits, and it deserves more attention.
Dental Coverage Gets Employees Closer to Care
Insurance matters.
Data from the American Dental Association’s Health Policy Institute show a clear relationship between dental coverage and dental care use. Among adults ages 19 to 64, 53% of those with private dental insurance had at least one dental visit in 2023. That compares with 24% of adults with public dental insurance and 16% of those without dental insurance.1
But there is another important takeaway hiding in those numbers.
Even among working-age adults with private dental insurance, nearly half did not have a dental visit that year.
That does not mean insurance is ineffective. It means insurance solves only one part of the access equation. For HR and benefits leaders, that makes dental benefits utilization an access question as much as a plan design question.
A dental plan can help make care financially accessible. It cannot automatically remove the time, scheduling, transportation, and workplace barriers that can affect access to dental care.
Why Don’t Employees Use Their Dental Benefits? Often, Time and Place
When we talk about barriers to health care, cost tends to get most of the attention. And for good reason.
But once financial access is addressed, practical access still matters.
The ADA lists affordability, dental fear, and the inability to find a convenient location or appointment time among the top reasons adults cite for avoiding the dentist.2
The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the National Institutes of Health, points to similar challenges. Its Oral Health in America report notes that accessing oral health care can be difficult for people without transportation or with inflexible work hours. The report specifically highlights expanding care into nontraditional settings, including places where people work, as one way to improve access.3
That distinction is important for employers.
An employee may have a dentist only a few miles away, but “a few miles away” can still mean leaving the workplace, driving to an appointment, waiting, receiving care, driving back, and fitting the entire process around work and family responsibilities.
Geographic proximity is not always the same thing as practical accessibility.
Preventative Dental Care Only Works When People Can Receive It
Making routine dental care easier to access matters because prevention and early treatment are important components of oral health.
Healthy People 2030, the federal government’s framework for improving health and well-being nationwide, describes access to preventative care such as dental checkups and cleanings, along with early treatment of dental problems, as essential to good oral health.4
The CDC also advises adults to visit a dentist at least once a year so a dental professional can check for cavities, oral health problems, and cancers.5
But recommendations only matter if people can realistically follow them.
That is where employee dental benefits strategy can start looking beyond enrollment.
Instead of asking only, “Do our employees have dental coverage?” employers can also ask:
- How easy is it for employees to use that coverage?
- What does attending an appointment require during a normal workday?
- Are employees delaying routine care because leaving work is difficult?
- Could some of the logistical burden be removed?
- Are we measuring benefit availability, or are we thinking about actual access?
Those questions shift the conversation from what is offered to what employees can realistically use.
How Workplace Dental Care Shortens the Last Mile
One way to address the last-mile problem is to reduce the distance between employees and care.
Onsite dental care changes the traditional model by bringing dental professionals directly into the workplace. With in-office dentistry, dental professionals come to the place employees already are.
It does not replace dental insurance.
It can make an existing benefit easier to access.
That distinction matters. The goal is not necessarily to redesign the dental plan. It is to remove some of the practical friction that can keep employees from taking advantage of it.
For employees, that can mean less travel and less time away from the workplace.
For employers, it creates an opportunity to think about benefits not simply as something offered during enrollment, but as something employees can realistically use throughout the year.
And the concept is consistent with the direction identified by federal oral-health experts: expanding oral health services beyond traditional dental offices and into settings where people live and work.3
From Benefit Availability to Benefit Accessibility
For years, benefits conversations have centered largely on plan design: What is covered? What does it cost? Which providers are in-network?
Those questions still matter.
But there is another question worth adding:
How much effort does it take for an employee to actually receive the care?
The answer may reveal a gap between dental coverage, benefit utilization, and practical access to care.
An employee can have a dental card in their wallet, a nearby provider in their network, and preventative services covered by their plan, yet still struggle to find the time to make an appointment happen.
That is the last mile.
And when employers find ways to shorten it, they can help turn a benefit employees have into care employees can actually receive.
Closing the Last Mile With Dentists on Demand
Dentists on Demand brings professional onsite dental care directly to the workplace, helping make dental services more accessible within employees’ normal workday.
Rather than asking employees to navigate every step between their benefits and the dental chair on their own, workplace dentistry brings that final step closer to them.
Because a dental benefit can look complete on paper.
The real test is whether employees can use it in real life. Talk to Dentists on Demand about making dental care easier for employees to access at work.
Sources & Footnotes
1 American Dental Association, Health Policy Institute. “Dental Coverage, Access & Outcomes.” The ADA reports that among adults ages 19–64, 53% with private dental insurance had at least one dental visit in 2023, compared with 24% with public insurance and 16% without dental insurance. ADA: Dental Coverage, Access & Outcomes
2 American Dental Association, Health Policy Institute. “The Dental Care Market.” The ADA identifies affordability, fear, and difficulty finding a convenient location or appointment time among leading reasons adults avoid dental visits. ADA: The Dental Care Market
3 National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. “Oral Health in America: Section 4 Summary.” NIDCR: Oral Health in America, Section 4
4 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Healthy People 2030. Healthy People 2030: Use of the Oral Health Care System
5 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Oral Health Tips for Adults.” CDC: Oral Health Tips for Adults