Irvine HMO Taking on Cigna Dental Agreement : Contract: National Health Care Systems will be paid $3.4 million to care for 95,000 L.A. County Medi-Cal recipients.

Cigna Healthplans of California said Tuesday that it has contracted with an Irvine health maintenance organization to provide dental care to 95,000 Medi-Cal recipients in Los Angeles County.

Under a $3.4-million contract, National Health Care Systems has agreed to provide the dental portion of Cigna’s Medi-Cal services for a year beginning March 1.

On Dec. 31, Cigna closed 11 dental offices in Los Angeles County, which primarily served indigent patients under the Medi-Cal program, said Del Bowman, a Cigna spokesman.

Glendale-based Cigna will continue to provide general medical services to Medi-Cal recipients. But the company decided to cease its dental services, Bowman said, “because it was not a growing business, was not profitable and would have required a substantial investment of capital to expand it.”

Cigna also wanted to use space in the former dental clinics to expand other medical services, Bowman said.

Despite Cigna’s losses, Dr. Carl E. Bozzo, National Health Care’s chairman and chief executive, said his company’s research has shown that the Cigna dental contract could be highly profitable.

“It is their loss and our gain,” he said about Cigna.

Bozzo said the new contract will make National Health Care’s prepaid dental plan, called DentiCare, the fourth largest in California, with more than 340,000 members statewide. The program for Medi-Cal recipients will be called CarePlus.

National Health has contracted with 253 private dentists to treat Cigna’s Medi-Cal patients, Bozzo said. Most of those dentists have practices near large numbers of Medi-Cal patients.

Many California dentists refuse to treat Medi-Cal patients because, they say, the state’s reimbursement rate is too low, Bozzo said. To encourage participation by dentists, National Health decided to raise the fees paid to dentists.

National Health can pay dentists more and still make a profit, he said.

His company will receive monthly fees for providing service to Cigna’s Medi-Cal recipients--$3 per patient regardless of whether the patient seeks dental care. Historically, just 15% to 20% of MediCal recipients actually take advantage of the free dental service, he said.

“If everyone were to come in,” he added, “we would be dead ducks.”

Cigna’s Bowman said Cigna will continue to be responsible for the administration and marketing of the dental services that National Health provides and for reporting to the state.