CDA is sponsoring SB 1008 by Senator Nancy Skinner to better inform consumers of what value a commercial dental plan provides and to ensure adequate value from these plans. We anticipate that the dental benefit plans will be pushing hard to oppose this measure. To counter them, we are asking CDA members to visit www.cda.org/sb1008 and fill out a form to submit a letter to their state senator supporting the legislation.
Specifically, SB 1008 would:
· Require all commercial dental benefit plans to provide their beneficiaries with a uniform summary of benefits and coverage – showing how much the plan spends on patient care along with other plan details, including its limitations, exceptions and anticipated out-of-pocket costs for the patient.
· Enact a “dental loss ratio” (DLR) standard, requiring dental plans to spend at least 70 percent of premium revenue on patient care (as opposed to administrative overhead costs).
Dental patients should know what they are buying and expect reasonable value. It’s time to give them more transparency and hold insurance companies accountable for how they are spending patient premium dollars. These consumer protections and transparency requirements exist for all medical insurance plans, but not commercial dental benefit plans. In fact, while all medical plans must spend at least 80 percent of all premium dollars on patient care, NO minimum requirement exists for commercial dental plans. As a result, one out of four dental plans in the state spends less than 50 percent of premium dollars on patient care, with some falling as low as 4 percent.
No comments:
Post a Comment