A bill has been introduced in the California Senate to diminish the "predatory" practices of dental plans and virtual credit card companies toward dentists.
Senate Bill 1369 requires dental plans and virtual credit card companies to provide dentists with a clear and simple process for opting in and out of services, according to a Feb. 20 news release from the California Dental Association.
Virtual credit card payments are issued to dentists through third-party contracts with dental insurers. Dental practices that accept virtual credit card payments are often hit with service fees of up to 10% for every transaction, due to additional processing fees of 2% to 5% charged by virtual credit card companies on top of standard merchant fees charged at credit card processing terminals.
Opting out of VCC services is often made difficult by the companies and is sometimes only temporary, causing the overhead of dental practices to increase.
Actions to combat this issue for dental practices include:
- Mandating that any payment to a provider that includes a process fee cannot be the default payment method.
- Mandating that providers must opt in to the payment method via signature before the payment is sent.
- Requiring plans to provide notice of any fees associated with a particular payment method.
- Requiring plans to advise dentists of alternative methods of payment with clear instructions on how to select an alternative method.
- Requiring plans to notify dentists if its VCC vendor is sharing any part of the profit, fee arrangement or board composition with the plan.
The bill is from Sen. Monique Limón and supported by the CDA, the release said.