A Brandon dentist has filed a class-action lawsuit against Delta Dental, the nation’s largest dental insurer, accusing the company of price-fixing and conspiracy to lower the amount paid to dentists.
Dentist William Dickey filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Jackson.
Dickey’s lawsuit says Delta Dental wields considerable market power by compelling dentists to accept below-market reimbursement for dental services.
Delta Dentist corporate officials couldn’t be reached for comment.
One in three Americans with dental insurance are insured through Delta Dental, which serves more than 80 million Americans, and three out of every four dentists in America are part of the Delta Dental system, according to the lawsuit.
I think this lawsuit is right on, Delta dental is abusing dentists by having extremely low fee schedule because of the fact that there are so many delta dental members. They are indeed guilty of fixing price conspiracy because of the power that they have over the market
Delta Dental is not the only dental insurance company involved in low fees for dental providers and also cheating and stealing benefits from the insured.
It is time for the dentist in this country call for the American Dental Association to review what insurance companies are doing to people. Each state should do a review of claims filed and claims paid to find the truth about the fraud insurance companies are involved with on a daily basis. These companies write into the policy books that insures the company will never pay a benefit. Such statements as “not covered due to natural attrition and wear of the tooth” WHy would you purchase a dental polcy knowing it will never pay? They sell these plans to company owners, who know nothing about dental problems . Why is it the insurance never supplies a policy booklet to the dental provider? They only supply a fee schedule to the dentist is the dentist continues to call for a copy of the fee schedule..The only way to kill a snake is to cut his head off! It’ss time to terminate dental insurance companies! I have a stack of denied claims if anyone is interested in finding out how insurance companies are stealing from their insured.
I’m a delta dental provider in North Texas, DD of Texas has not increased fees for the last 3 years. I contacted them to try and negotiate a fee increase and was told “we do NOT negotiate fees with Texas Dentist”. In my area 80% of the business here contract with DD.
Would love to file class action suite against Delta dental of Texas