California Dental Plan Introduces a ‘Menu’ of Benefits

California Dental Health Plan, a Tustin-based provider of dental insurance and prepaid dental care programs, has begun offering most of its California customers a choice of benefits so that they can tailor dental plans to fit their needs and their pocketbooks.

The so-called menu approach, introduced Tuesday, will allow employers and other insured groups to pick and choose from a potpourri of dental benefits, such as different deductible and maximum pay-out amounts. More than 500 benefit combinations are possible, company spokesman James Curtis said.

Just a few companies nationally offer the menu approach in dental care, Curtis said, and California Dental is the first in California to do so. About 85% of the company’s business is in California.

The company expects to offer the benefit menu in the next few months to its customers in Hawaii and Colorado, Curtis said. California Dental provides dental insurance and prepaid programs for more than 2,000 employers and other groups in the three states. More than 130,000 individuals are covered by its policies and programs.

The menu program will allow customers to choose from benefit alternatives incorporated in existing insurance and dental care programs.

The company’s dental insurance plan includes such choices as seven different annual maximums, four annual deductibles and eight levels of coverage for preventive, routine and major services. The company’s coverage is insured through Commercial Bankers Life Insurance in Newport Beach.

California Dental’s three prepaid dental care plans provide a number of variables, including such items as 50% coverage for orthodontics and 100% coverage for preventive services.