2.5 million lives covered by Delta Dental of Ohio
Thank you for providing quality care to our members!
Because of you, more individuals have access to healthier smiles.
Protecting smiles
Fall sports season is here—a perfect opportunity to remind your athlete patients to wear mouthguards when hitting the field or court.
A properly-fitted mouthguard can reduce the incidence and severity of oral injury in sports, especially in those that are high-contact like football or soccer.
In addition to talking to your patients about mouthguards, consider reminding them what to do in case of a dental emergency. Make sure they (or their parent/guardian) know what your office’s emergency care options are, or what to do for a chipped, broken or lost tooth until they can get to a dentist.
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DOT spotlight
“The (Dental Office Toolkit®) has helped us improve our patient relationships by being able to quickly obtain all the details of our patient coverage. Getting the dates of eligibility for diagnostic and preventive treatment has helped us provide our patients with outstanding dental care. Because your website is so organized, detailed and user-friendly, we rarely have to call Delta Dental.”
~Molly Singer; dental practice management consultant,
director of operations and dental billing training manager.
Learn more about the Dental Office Toolkit and register or log in.
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Customer service and operations corner
Welcome to our customer service and operations column! Each edition of News You Can Use will now include information about our amazing customer service and operations teams. In this column, we will share insight into these teams, tips and tricks for your office, and a little about our business.
In our first edition, we would like to tell you a little bit about our commercial group business customer service team.
- This team provides customer service for our Delta Dental of Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana commercial group business, i.e. employer groups.
- We have been honored to achieve the Benchmark Portal Certified Call Center of Excellence designation for 11 years, and for 2021, we were recognized as the top overall mid-size call center in any industry.
- Our call center has more than 140 customer service agents and leadership staff!
- Our customer service employees have been almost exclusively remote since mid-2020. We have been very successful as a remote team, and plan to stay that way.
- Our new-hire training program is intense! We have a seven-week program that includes an introduction to dental terminology and instruction around high-level problem solving and excellent service skills.
- Rather than train our staff to just simply read benefits that are available in Dental Office Toolkit, we train our team to be helpful through problem solving, and once and done service on your first call.
- All of our customer service representatives are trained in supporting Dental Office Toolkit. This means that all of our agents are ready to help you navigate and use Dental Office Toolkit.
- It takes a lot to run a call center! We have a very robust support structure through quality control, escalation support, workforce management and technical support, among other support programs.
In future editions, you can look forward to hearing about our government programs call center, our mailroom and operations teams, and our employees.
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Supporting students
Delta Dental of Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana employees rallied together to help students in our communities gear up for a great start to the school year.
Employees donated enough funds to fill 1,000 backpacks with school supplies for students across Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. These students received school supplies like notebooks, pencils, markers, scissors and more, plus a toothbrush and water bottle to encourage them to stay hydrated during the school day.
Backpacks and/or additional donations were distributed to the following organizations:
- Ohio—Lordstown Local Schools, Franklin County Children’s Services and Crayons to Computers
- Michigan—Communities in Schools of Michigan
- Indiana—Teachers’ Treasures
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Register for Delta Dental's free CE courses
Learn more about topics like an age 1 dental visit, safe opioid prescribing practices, nutrition for health and disease prevention, and more with continuing education courses from Delta Dental.
These courses are available online at no cost to our participating providers and their hygienists, assistants and office staff.
Visit www.deltadentaloh.com/onlineeducation to learn more.
Current courses include:
- Dental Care for Children with Special Health Care Needs
- Fluorides
- How to Complete an Age 1 Dental Visit
- HPV and Head and Neck Cancer
- Human Trafficking—Modern Day Slavery
- Infant and Toddler Oral Health care
- Nutrition for Health and Disease Prevention
- Nutrition for Oral and Overall Health
- Periodontal and Peri-Implant Diseases and Conditions
- The Proper Handling of Amalgam and Its Wastes—Complying with the New EPA Rules
- The Seal is the Deal
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New CE course from Penn Dental Medicine
There are nearly 57 million people with disabilities in the U.S. You can help improve access to dental care for these individuals by participating in a continuing education course through Penn Dental Medicine and supported by the Delta Dental Foundation.
The Center for Persons with Disabilities Presentation Series is aimed at building awareness of the barriers to equitable oral health care for individuals with disabilities, and developing competency to provide oral health care to this population.
The live webinars and on-demand courses are open to any U.S. licensed dentist and their support personnel at no charge. Register for this free course.
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Protecting your staff and patients
Every year, we require all Delta Dental participating dentists and staff to complete the Fraud, Waste and Abuse, and Cultural Competency training. This provides best practices on avoiding fraud, waste and abuse in your practice.
If there are participating providers in your office with different tax identification numbers, they must each submit an acknowledgment form for their individual TIN.
Follow the steps below to complete this training:
1. Visit the Delta Dental website
2. Click the “Download” button to review the training
Clicking “Download” will open a new browser window where you can view the training. You will not need to print the document and there is no test required. You may close the browser window displaying the training once it has been reviewed.
3. Click the “View Form” button to complete and submit the training acknowledgment form
Training is tracked by the TIN used to submit claims to Delta Dental. Only one dentist or staff person needs to submit an acknowledgment form per TIN.
4. Receive your confirmation email
A confirmation email will be sent to the email address entered on the acknowledgment form. The confirmation email is only valid for the TIN entered on the acknowledgment form. If the TIN entered does not match our records or was entered incorrectly, a new form will need to be submitted with the correct TIN to be marked complete.
If your business entity does not complete the required training, your Delta Dental participation agreement may be terminated.
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Recredentialing process
Delta Dental recredentials network dentists every three years as part of your Delta Dental participation agreement. This process is done through AppCentral, an electronic enrollment and credentialing tool that allows you to complete required documentation, receive real-time application status updates and view archived submissions. When it’s time for you to recredential, you will receive an email from
evalappcentral@cactussoftware.com.
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Applying for an NPI
Do you know which NPI you need?
All covered health care providers, health plans and health care clearinghouses must use a 10-digit National Provider Identifier (NPI) in their administrative and financial transactions. This is required by HIPAA Administrative Simplification regulations.
There are two types of NPIs.
- Type 1—Individual health care providers who are sole proprietors (not incorporated)
- Type 2—Organization health care providers who are incorporated (incorporated individuals), group practices, clinics, county health departments and partnerships
Learn more about which NPI you may need and the steps to take.
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