The American Dental Association submitted comments to legislators to use the hearings with health insurance CEOs to investigate issues in the dental insurance marketplace, according to a Jan. 23 news release from the ADA.
Here are five things to know:
- The House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee held a joint day of hearings Jan. 22 with CEOs of several large health insurance companies to focus on overall commercial availability of health insurance.
- The ADA pushed lawmakers to use the hearings as an opportunity to advance dental insurance reforms to improve transparency, accountability and competition.
- Common dental insurance plans are more likely to cover preventive services but leave patients to pay out-of-pocket for major services, creating barriers to dental services.
- The organization requested that insurers be required to provide standardized, plan-level reporting across both fully insured and ERISA, self-funded dental plans.
- Dental loss ratios, nonconsensual network expansion, rate leasing practices and claims administration standards were among the other reforms and fixes the ADA recommended.
Read the ADA’s full comments letter here.
