Delta Dental Poor Customer Service

@SusanneWarren wrote

I originally had the HMO version of the AARP plan, but had a bad experience with one of the dentists. I was paying on a monthly basis and after the first year, I called Delta and explained to the customer service rep that I wanted to cancel my current plan and enroll in the PPO plan. I chose at that time to pay the premium for the entire year.

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Seems your verbal messages aren't getting thru to them or their "bot" workers.

What I would do - is WRITE to the HMO address; mark a copy to the Corporate office 

Give dates, who you spoke to, if possible, list all the charges that have shown up in your bank account for the HMO plan that you verbally cancelled.   Send them also your PPO info like account #, the date you started it (the date your HMO s/h/b cancelled) and proof that you paid it in advance for a year.  If you want this refund, you are gonna have to fight for it - and the 1st step is to get your complaint to the right person to handle it and at this stage that isn't gonna be a CS rep over the phone.  There may be a process in your HMO contract that talks about how to do cancellations specifically.

We all control our own bank accounts - you could have stopped the auto deduct of the HMO plan at your bank when you cancelled it.  People should continue to balance their checking accounts monthly, that way they keep themselves up-to-date on such auto deducts and can action immediately if they wish to stop an auto deduct for some reason.

Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.gov - 08/25/2020 - How do I stop automatic payments from my bank account?

from the link ~ (there is more at the link as to the exact procedure)

Federal law provides certain protections for recurring automatic debit payments. You have the right to stop a company from taking automatic payments from your account, even if you previously allowed them. For example, you may decide to cancel your membership or service with the company, or you might decide to pay a different way.

Hi there, here to help! We certainly understand your concern regarding AARP Dental Insurance provided by Delta Dental and apologize for your experience. We would be glad to work with the Escalation team at Delta Dental to have this investigated for you. If you are still having difficulties with Delta Dental, please either give us a call at 1-888-OUR-AARP (1-888-687-2277) to request an Escalation or send me a private message in the AARP Online Community by clicking this link and entering my username, “AARPThelmaG” into the “Send to” box https://community.aarp.org/t5/notes/composepage. Please provide the following details in your message:

• Full name
• AARP Membership # (or home address)
• Phone # and email address to contact you
• Description of your issue

We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate you informing us of your concern. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

Recently had a rough experience with Delta Dental. For tough financial reasons I needed to cancel my plan. Turns out there's a 12 month "contract" which doesn't allow that. It is well hidden on the website so most people don't know it's even there. I tried calling, chatting, emailing to get clarification on this. They did not respond to my emails at all. Different reps told me different things. One of the reps said I could cancel and she did cancel me, well that was not true, and she did NOT cancel me. Fortunately that phone call was recorded and I finally got someone to follow that up after numerous attempts to contact someone. Finally Delta Dental got back to me and admitted it was an "internal" error and they would let me cancel anyway. Well, finally they let me cancel but they are still trying to take payments out of my account so I had to cancel my credit card and put a stop payment on my automatic withdrawals from my checking account. Today was supposed to be the cancellation date and they have cancelled my i.d. card but still show my closed credit card as available for payments!

Hi Susanne, I had a nightmare experience with Delta Dental as well. Not only are the Customer Service Agents unwilling or unable to deal with problems they create due to their inability to process a claim timely and correctly, but, when you finally get a live agent on the phone, they refer to correspondence that has not ever been mailed to the insured member yet.  So, the member has not had the benefit of reading correspondence from the grievance because Delta Dental has NOT sent the member a copy of the correspondence.  Talk about BAD SERVICE!!  The agents are indifferent, rude and impatient. Evidently, they are NOT capable of resolving the problems the insured member encounters when using the plan, and you are NEVER allowed to speak to a supervisor or someone more experienced with claim payment.  I'm disgusted with them too, but I don't think their coverage is good enough to put up with their incompetence. There's plenty of competent insurance carriers that can process dental claims accurately, timely and efficiently, Delta Dental and their unruly staff is just NOT one of them.  

i had been a fan of the Delta Dental plan thru AARP. I treated for years with a dentist I like when I had an employer paid Delta plan. I continued to see him after I retired, even after he was no longer an “in network” dentist. For years reimbursement for the covered portion that I paid out of pocket came quickly. But now, to date I am still waiting for a check that was allegedly “processed” for service I received 2 months ago. When I called about this once I was told that I was “lucky” that I’d previously received prompt payment, because it could take 21 days. The next time I was offered an option to file a grievance. The person I spoke to said she was documenting my grievance for me. However, a couple of weeks later I received a letter in the mail advising that I would need to file the grievance by mail or online. Since they seem to refuse to reimburse me for no legitimate reason, I plan to cancel the insurance.