The Leading Business Education Network for Doctors, Financial Advisors and Health Industry Consultants

Or, Birds of a Feather; etc. etc

By Darrell K. Pruitt; DDS

Introduction

Just a quick note while I’m working on other material. As anyone can see from reading Rabia Mughal’s DrBicuspid article, “Dentists or patients: Who should get the insurance check?” Delta Dental is simply a sleazy company that dentists should shun to protect their patients’ welfare.

http://www.drbicuspid.com/index.aspx?sec=sup&sub=pmt&pag=dis&ItemID=301436&wf=34

It is unethical to sign a contract with Delta Dental, and I will help Delta show you why. Here is a sample of Delta sleaze I intend to present:

Arlene Furlong on Delta Dental

On September 17, 2008, Arlene Furlong posted an article about Delta Dental on ADA News Online titled “Delta caps rates nationally for two networks.”

http://www.ada.org/prof/resources/pubs/adanews/adanewsarticle.asp?articleid=3218

Furlong writes:

“A contract provision that holds dentists to Delta’s maximum allowed fee for non-covered services will affect all of Delta’s Premier and Preferred Provider Organization participating dentists throughout the country by January 2011.″.

The Upshot 

This means that if a Delta preferred provider wishes to make up for the profit lost from providing Delta customers 25% discounts on dentistry, which works out to over half the dentist’s pay after expenses are deducted, doing more cosmetic dentistry will no longer help keep the doors open.  Delta, like a sleazy dentistry broker, is telling its providers that it will demand discounts on everything for its customers. Think about it. It is beyond unfair business practice. It is tyranny.

Invading the Dental Homes 

And now, Mughal tells us that Delta Dental intends to break up dental homes – where patients enjoy the benefits of continuity of care from dentists they prefer.  Why does Delta harm their clients like that? 

Ari Adler, the communications administrator at Delta Dental of Indiana says it is a matter of dentists stealing something from the network:

“Direct reimbursement to out-of-network dentists is a problem because it allows them to enjoy the benefits provided by the network without following cost guidelines and quality control measures of the network”, [Adler] added.

Quality control; you mean like UnitedHealthcare’s Ingenix? 

When one thinks about it, since dentists will only be paid half of what they are paid today, no matter what they do for dental patients, quality control could indeed become a new issue, just like the appearance of black-market dentistry. 

My Beat 

I will be covering quality control by dental consultants soon. Did you know that they have their own national organization? It is called the American Association of Dental Consultants (AADC). I bet you didn’t know this: Less than a year ago, Dr. Gordon Christiansen as well as Dr. John Luther, Senior Vice-President of the ADA, spoke at their annual convention in Scottsdale, Arizona. Delta Dental was Dr. John Luther’s employer before he came to work for the ADA. Hmm, I wonder?

Wait, there’s more:  the AADC’s largest sustaining sponsor is UnitedHealthcare Dental. http://aadc.org/site/sponsors.php

The Ingenix Scandal

Have you heard of UnitedHealthcare’s company called Ingenix?  New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo caught Ingenix being creative with physicians’ FOIA-disclosable data for cost-control purposes (profit), and calling it quality control.  Ingenix was marketing its professional number-cooking scheme to insurers across the nation before Cuomo saw through their deceit and recently demanded Ingenix to be dissolved. 

Transparent Feudal Mechanisms 

One can see that incest probably worked well for royalty in Europe until literacy and the free-market brought transparency to their self-perpetuating feudal machinations. I will be watching for a name and email address of an appropriate Delta Dental official to contact about Delta’s sleazy business practices.  At some point in this thread (which I can keep active for years), I intend to make someone from Delta Internet-famous among dentists, just like Trajan King, CEO of Intelligent Dental Marketing. Suggestions from readers and subscribers are always appreciated.  Please, no in-laws.

Assessment 

It is time to come out and defend yourself in front of a hostile audience, you good ol’ boys from Delta Dental … or not.  Your old command-and-control tricks don’t stand a chance in a transparent marketplace, and I will show you that silence is lame defense as well. Someone on your team is trapped. Please, let’s talk sooner than later.

Conclusion

Your thoughts and comments on this ME-P are appreciated. Feel free to review our top-left column, and top-right sidebar materials, links, URLs and related websites, too. Then, subscribe to the ME-P. It is fast, free and secure.

Link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HealthcareFinancialsthePostForcxos

Speaker: If you need a moderator or speaker for an upcoming event, Dr. David E. Marcinko; MBA – Publisher-in-Chief of the Medical Executive-Post – is available for seminar or speaking engagements. Contact: MarcinkoAdvisors@msn.com

OUR OTHER PRINT BOOKS AND RELATED INFORMATION SOURCES:

DICTIONARIES: http://www.springerpub.com/Search/marcinko
PHYSICIANS: www.MedicalBusinessAdvisors.com
PRACTICES: www.BusinessofMedicalPractice.com
HOSPITALS: http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466558731
CLINICS: http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781439879900
BLOG: www.MedicalExecutivePost.com
FINANCE: Financial Planning for Physicians and Advisors
INSURANCE: Risk Management and Insurance Strategies for Physicians and Advisors

Filed under: Career Development, Ethics, Health Economics, Insurance Matters, Managed Care, Marketing & Advertising, Op-Editorials, Practice Management, Research & Development, Risk Management | Tagged: American Association of Dental Consultants, Andrew Cuomo, Ari Adler, Arlene Furlong, delta dental, Dr. Gordon Christiansen, Dr. John Luther, Ingenix, Intelligent Dental Marketing, PPMC, Rabia Mughal, Trajan King | 6 Comments »