May 18, 2005
San Francisco California's largest dental plan announced today the launch earlier this year of a new online claims status inquiry service for the millions of California enrollees who access dental health benefit information via the company's web site at www.deltadentalca.org.
Officials with Delta Dental of California also announced the launch of Dental Wire, an online dental health enrollee newsletter, and state-of-the-art encryption software that secures the company's transmission of electronic personal health information.
"Our expanding online capabilities cater to the growing needs and expectations of those looking to optimize the value of their Delta Dental program online, in a real time, self-service environment," said Patrick Steele, Delta Dental's chief information officer. "These are only a few of many enhancements to come, and which are planned as part of our evolving web strategy."
The new claims status inquiry feature offers several advantages, including display of the patient's portion of the claim, adjustment notices and information on claims in progress. Subscribers and provider access the new service via secure registration and login, similar to Delta Dental's existing web-based eligibility and benefits feature.
According to Steele, more than 130,000 California enrollees are already registered on the company's site to use the service, "which in turn helps reduce the number of enrollee phone calls and the number of duplicate NOPs (notice-of-payments) generated if there is an enrollee inquiry regarding the status of a claim."
Online claims status inquiry has been available to participating Delta dentists since 2000. However, new federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations are leading many employers to become more interested in making sure their employees can easily access their own benefits information without using their employer as the go-between.
Delta Dental recently introduced other online service enhancements for the benefit of its subscribers and group customers, including:
Dental Wire, a free, online newsletter that provides dental health tips, ideas for optimizing covered benefits, links to puzzles and games for kids, and relevant health care industry news. Delta Dental enrollees can receive Dental Wire every other month via e-mail by signing up on a web-based registration page at: http://deltadental.istep.com/dentalwire/.
New encryption software, launched last month, encodes all e-mails that contain electronic protected health information (ePHI) sent by Delta Dental to enrollees, benefits managers, brokers, dentists anyone receiving ePHI. This encoding will protect private information from being accidentally read or misused if an e-mail is intercepted by an unauthorized individual.
Delta Dental of California, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary in business, belongs to a San Francisco-based nonprofit holding company system with operations and affiliate companies in 16 states plus the District of Columbia. The enterprise collectively serves nearly 20 million enrollees in both commercial and government-sponsored programs throughout the nation.
Members of the holding company are also members of the Delta Dental Plans Association, whose 39 independent companies cooperate on nationwide programs that today cover more than 45 million of the approximately 155 million Americans with dental benefits.