Dental Rewards

Staff Contact: Mark Navin

A new approach to group Dental insurance.

Thousands of employees and dependents covered under the Business Council Insurance Fund's dental program will be getting increases in their 2009 benefit maximum as the result of their taking especially good care of their teeth and only using a portion of the maximum benefit available to them in 2008!

This feature, called "Dental Rewards", applies to all of The Insurance Fund's existing and new dental programs. Individuals who qualify for a higher maximum in 2006 will be notified with the first dental claim "EOB" (Explanation of Benefits) they receive this year.

To qualify for "Dental Rewards", covered employees or dependents only need to do two things per calendar year (or from the plan effective date if there is no prior coverage):

  1. Go to the dentist at least once.
  2. Use no more of their annual maximum than their plan's "Annual Threshold" (the "Annual Threshold" varies depending on the company's plan maximum).

For example, our $1000 maximum dental plans have a $500 Annual Threshold and a $250 Dental Reward. Persons covered in 2008 under this plan maximum would only need to have visited their dentist once in 2008 and have used no more than $500 of their $1000 maximum to earn a $250 Dental Reward in 2009. For these individuals, the maximum benefit shown on their first EOB received in 2009 would be $1250 instead of $1000. Persons who didn't visit their dentist at least once; or who used more than $500 of their $1000 maximum in 2008 will have their regular $1000 maximum benefit available for 2009.

The following chart illustrates how Dental Rewards works for all our plan maximums. Note that an individual can build up their "Dental Rewards" maximum too in subsequent years - up to an additional $1000 for the $1000 maximum plan in the preceding example (highlighted)!

 

Plan Maxiumum Annual Threshold Annual Reward Maximum Reward
$750 $250 $125 $500
$1,000 $500 $250 $1,000
$1,250 $500 $250 $1,000
$1,500 $750 $250 $1,000
$2,000 $750 $400 $1,200

 

This is the fifth year that participants in The Business Council Insurance Fund have been eligible for benefit maximum increases through "Dental Rewards".