Practices participating in a dental PBRN have substantial and advantageous diversity even though as a group they have much in common with dentists at large

Table 2 Practitioner and Practice Characteristics Available From the DPBRN Enrollment Questionnaire

Practice setting	Patient population	Dental procedure characteristics	Dentist individual characteristics
Number of different sites at which you provide patient care at least once each week	Age distribution	Percentage of your time each day spent doing specific types of procedures ³	Gender
Whether you practice full-time or part-time	Racial distribution	Percentage of procedures that are done mainly for esthetic reasons	Race
Number of full-time dental hygienists in your practice	Percentage of revenues or charges that are derived from different payment sources ²	Percentage of certain procedures that you refer to other dentists ⁴	Year of graduation from dental school
Number of full-time dental assistants in your practice		Percentage of patients who get certain services at some time while they are patients in your practice ⁵
Number of dental chairs you use regularly in your part of the practice		Number of root canal procedures that you do or refer each month
Number of patient visits you personally have during a typical week		Number of dental extractions that you do or refer each month
Typical number of days a patient has to wait for a new patient examination
Typical number of days a patient has to wait for a treatment procedure appointment
Practice busyness ¹

¹ Too busy to treat all people requesting appointments; Provided care to all who requested appointments, but the practice was overburdened; Provided care to all who requested appointments, and the practice was not overburdened; Not busy enough - the practice could have treated more patients.
² Dental insurance; Self-pay; Unpaid bills; Other.
³ Percentage of patient contact time that you spend in a typical month performing the following procedures: Non-implant restorative dentistry; Implants (either implant surgery or time spent with implant placement); Dental extractions; Periodontal therapy (either time spent doing surgery or with non-surgical procedures); Endodontic therapy; Other (preventive and diagnostic).
⁴ Percentage of the following procedures that you refer to other dentists: Periodontal surgery; Prosthetic crowns and bridges (other than implants); Implant surgery; Implant restorations; Anterior tooth root canals; Molar tooth root canals; Non-surgical extractions.
⁵ Percentage of patients on which you or your staff perform the following procedures at some time while the patient is in your practice: Diet counseling; Blood pressure screening; Oral cancer screening examination; Oral hygiene instruction; Patient education from written pamphlets; Intraoral photographs; Intraoral video images taken; At-home whitening.

ISSN: 1472-6831