Informed Patient Options

We are pleased to introduce Informed Patient Options, a new dental benefit program that ranks dentists into tiers, helping customers control costs and enabling them to make informed choices about dental care.

Using years of dental claims data, research and sophisticated analytic techniques, we are able to identify and rank dentists based on their history of providing quality treatment decisions ^†, and ability to deliver long-term cost savings.

A dentist's approach to providing care, rather than his or her fees for a particular treatment, is by far the largest factor in dental costs. Given a choice of treatment options, dentists who show a patient-centered approach to care will choose the least invasive techniques to maintain and protect the individual's oral health.

For example, research favors dentists who perform X-rays based on the patient's unique oral health condition, history and risks, rather than scheduling X-rays whenever the dental plan will pay for them (or on a routine X-ray schedule that applies to all patients).

The dentist's decision-making is tied to the individual's oral health in a way that makes clinical sense - and results in consumer and employer savings.

We believe this approach to dental care not only offers long-term economic value while meeting the individual patient's unique needs.

How Is This Information Shared?

Dentists who fit this profile are identified and ranked through an easy-to-use Dentist Search tool. In just a few easy steps, members can identify a high-ranking dentist in their local area.

What Does This Mean For Groups?

In the context of rising health and dental costs, this new model delivers on three key elements strongly desired by every Group Administrator:

Offers cost savings stronger than any PPO model
Shares key information with the patient to help them identify dentists who make quality treatment decisions
Preserves freedom of choice

Select Fortune 500 clients are currently using this dental benefit model. It has resulted in millions of dollars of savings to the group and its employees.

We believe this is the future of dental benefits and a number of independent industry leaders agree. For more information and details on how it can impact groups' bottom lines, read our Informed Patient Options brochure and find out about our Analytics capabilities.