Ensure all community dentists who provide dental care to veteran patients are notified and periodically reminded of the preauthorization requirements for any changes to treatment plans.
Conduct expanded postpayment reviews to identify and recover payments for unauthorized dental procedures.
Monitor VA dentists to make sure they include required dental procedure codes, not only general descriptions or Standardized Episodes of Care, on referrals to identify the procedures community dentists are authorized to perform.
Review the current contract language and determine if there is a need to clarify the third-party administrators’ claims adjudication responsibilities in its contracts to include the identification of unauthorized dental procedures and adjudication of possible denials of payment or implement controls within VA that will perform this adjudication function for dental claims.
Enable the Office of Finance’s automated payment system to deny payment for community dental services if the procedure codes on the dental claims do not fall within the Standardized Episodes of Care on the referral.