Did your practice receive a Cigna Fee Reduction letter? Dental practices that participate with Cigna PPO in certain market areas (Northern Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland and Pennsylvania) have been receiving a letter from the Plan with a copy of a new reduced plan fee schedule. Cigna Dental is working to reduce “the cost of care” by decreasing fee schedules for targeted practices, sometimes as much as 25%. The trend of the mailings so far suggests that the majority of practices with any custom or enhanced Cigna fee schedules are at risk to receive the Cigna fee reduction notice.

We Received a Cigna Fee Reduction Letter – Now What?

Cigna Dental is a large insurance carrier and we expect that many patients will be affected by this change. We recommend seven points to consider when developing your response to this targeted Cost Reduction process:

• Review your practice software and determine the number or active Cigna patients in your practice. These are your patients with Cigna Dental coverage.

• Communicate with your Cigna patients. Ask the patients to reach out to their Human Resources department and tell the company that they still want to access their doctor.

• Review potential participation alternatives. At the time of this post, Cigna representatives have indicated that the plan will NOT allow access through any existing network lease arrangements.

• Offer alternatives to Cigna Dental coverage, including a low-cost in-house discount plan. The Plan should include an exam and cleaning each year with a 20 to 25% discount on the remainder of your practice’s fees.

• An accessible list of other Dental Plans accepted by the practice can also be offered as an alternative option to your patients. Reducing the practice’s dependency on the plans with the lowest fees will make the practice stronger. Market to your patients and aggressively work to keep them under your care.

• Cigna will most likely not accept a request to increase the new reduced fee schedule included in this 30-day notice. If there is any room for negotiation, it will be minimal and move the practice to the “DPPO” network. The DPPO network is a smaller portion of the overall “Advantage” network and also increases patient copays.

• Although you will receive a 30-day notice from Cigna to reduce your fees, the Cigna contract requires a 90-day notice from the practice to terminate. This will be important in coordinating care and benefits.

Did your practice receive a Cigna Fee Reduction letter and you are not sure how to react? Contact Us! We can help. Please call our office at 856-235-0020. We will work with you to develop the best response strategy for your practice.

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At Dynamic Dental Support, we specialize in the business end of dental practices. We offer administrative support and use financial analysis and strategies to assist dental practices in their operations. As a Dental Support Organization (DSO) we provide increased leverage in dealing with the Dental Insurance Plans. For over 25 years, we’ve been developing strategic growth plans for practices like yours.