Membership at managed dental healthcare plans operating in Orange County slightly declined over the year ended last month after a surge in 2015.
The 13 largest dental plans with local membership were down about 1% to 2,604,951 local members, according to the Business Journal’s annual list of dental health maintenance organizations and preferred provider organizations operating here.
Dental plans are ranked by the number of members.
Their enrollment grew by 25% last year for various reasons, including more commercial contract business, increased membership in the state’s Denti-Cal program, and offering of dental HMO and PPO plans to consumers who enroll in the state-run Covered California health insurance exchange.
Seven of the plans provided Orange County enrollment figures this year. Numbers for the other six are Business Journal estimates.
• Delta Dental Plans Association of California of San Francisco, the list’s perennial leader, had a local enrollment of 1,473,962, up 3% over a year ago.
Delta became OC’s health plan market leader nine years ago when it surpassed what was then known as Safeguard Dental Health Plans.
Safeguard now is owned by New York-based MetLife Inc., which came in at No. 3 this year with 186,522 Orange County members, flat from a year ago.
• Anthem Blue Cross is the list’s No. 2 dental plan with an estimated 200,000 local members. Its parent, Indianapolis-based Anthem Inc., is planning to acquire Bloomfield, Conn.-based Cigna Corp. for $54 billion in a deal that has attracted the scrutiny of the U.S. Justice Department, which said in late July that it would sue to block the transaction.
• Cigna is the No. 4 plan on this year’s list with 162,740 local members.
• UnitedHealthcare Dental follows Cigna at No. 5. Its Orange County membership grew by 8% to 154,805 members.
• Aetna Dental is the list’s No. 6 plan with 149,518 members in Orange County. Its parent, West Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna Inc., is in the process of spending $34 billion to buy Louisville, Ky.-based Humana Inc., a plan that doesn’t appear on the list.
The Justice Department and 11 state attorneys general, including California Attorney General Kamala Harris, sued to block the Aetna-Humana deal, as well as the proposed Anthem-Cigna combination.
Their complaints allege that the deals “would harm seniors, working families and individuals, employers and doctors and other healthcare providers by limiting price competition, reducing benefits, decreasing incentives to provide innovative wellness programs and lowering the quality of care,” the department said in a statement.
• Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America repeated at No. 7 this year. The plan’s local membership grew 5% to 112,054.
• United Concordia Dental, a Harrisburg, Pa.-based plan, came in at No. 8. It said it had 46,515 members in Orange County, 2% more than a year ago.
• Orange-based Western Dental Services Inc. has an estimated 45,000 local members, giving it the No. 9 spot on the list, the same as last year.
• The Business Journal estimates that Ameritas Group Dental, the No. 10 plan, has 41,742 local members, unchanged from a year ago.
• Irvine-based Smile Brands Inc. has an estimated 12,500 Orange County enrollees, which landed it at No. 11 for a second year in a row.
• Sacramento-based Premier Access Insurance Co. is the list’s No. 12 plan.
The Business Journal estimates the participant in the dental insurance portion of the Covered California health insurance exchange created by healthcare reform has 12,332 local members.
• Dental Health Services, a Long Beach-based plan, wraps up the list at No. 13. The Business Journal estimates it has 7,261 members.
