INTRODUCTION: secondary care may reflect the care-solving capacity of primary care, considering the principle of integrality and the construction of health care networks in the Unique System of Heatlh (USH), supporting the organization of activities and oral health services in the context of medium complexity. OBJECTIVE: to evaluate models of primary care in oral health in the municipality of Marilia / SP using information related to secondary care in dentistry, according to the principle of integrity. METHODOLOGY: This is a retrospective study with a randomly selected sample of 6 Basic Health Units (BHU), characterized by the traditional model of care, and 11 Family Health Units (FHU) working with the perspective of the Family Health Model. Secondary data were collected in two places: a) Department of Evaluation, Control and Auditing, which reported the number of referrals scheduled for specialties, and b) Center for Dental Specialties (CDS) that pointed out the number of missing patients in the initial consultation and the number of patients who abandoned specialized treatment. The Department of Oral Health Coordination reported unmet demand specialty endodontics. CDS operation from 2007 to 2009 was considered for collecting data. We conducted exploratory data analysis, and Student t and Mann-Whitney tests were performed. RESULT: The highest number of referrals for endodontics was coming from BHU. The percentage of absense in the initial consultation, treatment dropout and care-solving capacity in the specialty showed no statistical difference in relation to the organizational model of primary care. CONCLUSION: We conclude that results from both organizational models are similar, except for endodontic indication for endodontic treatment, suggesting future studies, analysis of other variables mainly related to the user.
Health services evaluation; oral health; secondary health care; primary health care