Institutional landscape and practical challenges of visiting dental care for older adults: a narrative review

Objectives: To synthesize the institutional landscape of visiting dental care for older adults in South Korea through an international comparison and to identify practical challenges to be addressed for sustainable implementation.Methods: A narrative review was conducted using PubMed, Google Scholar, the Korea Citation Index, and the Korean Legal Information System.The review included Korean and international academic literature, government reports, guidelines, and case law on visiting dental care, with a comparative analysis of the Japanese, German, and English systems conducted based on healthcare system similarities to South Korea.Results: The tiered reimbursement structure of Japan linked to long-term care insurance, the incremental institutionalization of Germany through cooperation contracts, and the standard guidelines and quality regulations of the United Kingdom provide distinct reference points.Practical challenges in South Korea include: (1) interpretive uncertainty of Article 33 of the Medical Service Act, (2) environmental constraints of infection control designed for outpatient care, (3) the absence of emergency response protocols suitable for home and facility settings, (4) institutional gaps in medical records and information sharing, (5) consent and decision-making capacity for cognitively impaired patients, (6) ambiguity in liability allocation, and (7) safety blind spots faced by visiting dental personnel.These issues are amplified by coordination gaps in a multi-professional collaboration structure.Conclusions: Supplementary measures are required for the institutional consolidation of visiting dental care, including previsit risk assessment, an addendum on visiting care to existing infectioncontrol manuals, standardization of medical record forms and explicit information-sharing procedures, prior cooperation agreements between care facilities and dentists, and structural support through tiered reimbursements and dedicated education budgets.The subordinate regulations of the 2026 Integrated Care Support Act should explicitly codify these practical standards.