About Delta Dental of Illinois

August 28, 2008

About Delta Dental of Illinois

Delta Dental is the largest and most experienced dental benefits carrier in the country.

The Delta Dental National System covers 50.4 million Americans with dental coverage -- more than any other dental insurance carrier - making us larger than the next two largest carriers combined. We provide dental benefits to 88,000 groups nationwide, including more than one quarter of the Fortune 1000.

Delta Dental of Illinois is one of the 39 member companies that make up the Delta Dental National System. Delta Dental of Illinois offers dental benefit programs to Illinois-based groups with two or more eligible enrollees.

We provide fully-insured and administrative services only dental benefit programs to 1.4 million enrollees in 3,600 groups represeting all business sectors such as hospitals, municipalities, school districts and universities, government entities, commercial businesses, labor groups and national accounts.

There are many reasons why these groups prefer DDIL. Some of these are:

Delta Dental PPO Plus Premier. Our exclusive managed fee-for-service network, Delta Dental Premier (70% of Illinois dentist locations participate), works in tandem with our PPO network (more than 3,000 dentist locations in the state) to increase network utilization, creating enrollee cost savings no other carrier can provide. When you select Delta Dental PPO, Delta Dental Premier goes along with it, offering a valuable “safety net” for out-of-pocket, out-of-network protection. In 2007, 80% of our enrollees who visited a dentist used a network dentist.
We have the largest networks in the country. Delta Dental PPO has over 64,000 dentists practicing in 106,000 dentist locations. Delta Dental Premier has over 124,000 dentists practicing in 184,000 locations. DeltaCare has dentists practicing in over 18,000 locations.
“No balance billing” provisions in both PPO and Premier networks that prevents costshifting and reduces out-of-pocket costs for many enrollees.
Sophisticated systematic cost management mechanisms, such as the ability to prevent dentists from “unbundling” services to increase their fees, that generate plan and enrollee out-of-pocket savings. Network dentists cannot balance bill Delta Dental patients for amounts we limit or disallow based on standard of care-related determinations. These protections will impact up to 80% of Delta Dental of Illinois enrollees, as compared to the only 25-35% who would receive similar protections with other dental carriers.
Our performance is second to none and we are proud to include aggressive performance guarantees with this proposal. In 2007, we processed 1.93 million claims in an average of 2.16 days with 99.4% processing accuracy and 99.8% financial accuracy. We answered all calls within 11 seconds and our first call resolution rate was 99.6%.
ALL administrative and client services – claims processing, customer service, network management, financial reporting, eligibility maintenance, claim review, underwriting and billing – are provided from our Lisle, IL Service Center.
Superior standard management reports and ad hoc reports at no additional charge.
Comprehensive web-based applications for enrollees and group administrators.
Additionally, DDIL has a vested interest in the community. Our mission includes improving the oral health of the communities we serve. We further this mission by supporting groups and programs that help provide oral health education and expand access to oral health care for the people of Illinois. In 2007, we awarded nearly $500,000 in grants to community programs that provide essential oral health education and services to their community. Our community benefit programs may directly impact Provena enrollees and their families, such as our Teeth-on-the-Go program, which has offered free dental education performances featuring Tooth Wizard and PlaqueMan to more than 200 elementary schools elementary schools across Illinois in the past two years.