Jennifer Mendoza
Research expert covering health, pharma and medtech
Oral health and dental care in Italy - Statistics & Facts
Italy’s healthcare system provides free universal coverage or, depending on the type of service and the patient’s characteristics, healthcare services are provided after a small co-payment. However, when it comes to dental care, dental and orthodontic services are rarely granted coverage. Indeed, of almost 50 thousand dentists in Italy, 95 percent work in private practice. Even though dental care services are cheaper in Italy than in other countries (for example, they are on average 30 percent less expensive than in the UK), for Italians the high cost of dental and orthodontic care is one of the main reasons for not going to the dentist. Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, expenditure for dental care in Italy has decreased by roughly 14 percent since 2018, with about six out of ten Italians not going to the dentist.
