Quality of intraoral radiographs sent by private dental practitioners for therapy evaluation by the Social Insurance Office.

Nearly all Swedish private dentists are affiliated with the Dental Care Insurance. Proposed treatment plans, including radiographs, are submitted to the Social Insurance Office for prior approval. In this study the quality of a sample of intraoral radiographs submitted by 404 private dental practitioners was analysed. Forty-four per cent of 3,708 periapical radiographs, simultaneously evaluated by two examiners, were satisfactory. The most frequent errors were excessive vertical angulation (18 per cent), missing apex (12 per cent), film positioning error (11 per cent) and underexposure (10 per cent). Fifty-five per cent of 294 bitewing radiographs were satisfactory; the major error was missing bone margin (33 per cent). The radiographs of 15 per cent of the 2,844 teeth proposed for therapy had insufficient radiographic documentation, six per cent because of missing radiograph and nine per cent because of missing apex on the radiograph. These errors applied to every second dentist. Compared to a similar study ten years ago, the present results do not indicate that the quality of intraoral radiographs has improved.