Local Guides World
Jennifer Bone
1 reviews on 1 places
I am a dentist in Kerrville, TX. I very rarely write negative reviews, but I'm writing one now for MetLife Dental. My office is not in-network with MetLife Dental, but we do receive electronic claim payments from them. There are 2 major issues I have with MetLife Dental:
1) Electronic payments from MetLife Dental used to show up on our bank statements with a trace number, making it easy to identify which patient is associated with the payment. Now they show up with an ID number that is not the same as the trace number. There is no way to search for processed claims by ID number on the MetLife Dental provider site. So when funds are deposited several days, weeks, sometimes months, after we have submitted a claim for a patient--and when, within the average month, we typically get a number of deposits for the same amount (for a cleaning, x-rays and exam, for instance)—and when some of the deposits are bulk payments involving multiple patients--looking back to match the MetLife Dental electronic deposits on our bank statement to the daily deposits is a sink hole of time and frustration for our team.
2) The frustration mentioned above is compounded by the fact that the MetLife Dental provider website has a major glitch: When you click a tab to “View Claims,” the next window might allow you search claims by trace number, by dates, or by social security number/member ID number (not the same as the deposit ID number mentioned above). This search function generally works well. The problem is that this window often does not pop up after you click, “View Claims.” Instead, most of the time, a different window appears that allows you to search claims ONLY by social security or member ID number. So if we can’t use a trace number to match payments to claims, we can use dates (it’s still tedious). But with only social security numbers and member IDs to search by, you would have to look up every MetLife patient with payments in the dental system within the past month to accurately reconcile the payments in the dental system with those on the bank statement. It’s not a reasonable use of time. I’ve spoken to MetLife Dental representatives about this glitch. (By the way, speaking to a rep is basically a miracle since there is no phone number for MetLife Dental on the provider website, and the “Help” tab takes you to an error message.) The reps with whom I’ve spoken advise to not allow the login information to automatically populate, clear the browsing history, and/or use a different browser. I have done all of this. I have even moved to 2 different computers that are not on our network, and I get the same results—getting the search screen that allows you to search with variables other than social security and member ID is basically like winning the lottery.
All I want to do is provide great dentistry for my patients and reconcile a bank statement. MetLife Dental is always the roadblock to the reconciliation. It just shouldn’t be that hard.
Corporate MetLife Dental executives, if you’re reading this, I hope you’ll make an effort to improve your provider website. Honestly, I doubt you care. If I ever entertained the idea of enrolling as a network provider with MetLife Dental, all of this—these small things that over time are incredibly irritating—has made me run in the opposite direction. I’ll wrap up this review now and try again to login to the MetLife Dental page—hopefully this time I’ll get the search window that is actually useful for me. My fingers are crossed but by heart is doubtful . . .
1) Electronic payments from MetLife Dental used to show up on our bank statements with a trace number, making it easy to identify which patient is associated with the payment. Now they show up with an ID number that is not the same as the trace number. There is no way to search for processed claims by ID number on the MetLife Dental provider site. So when funds are deposited several days, weeks, sometimes months, after we have submitted a claim for a patient--and when, within the average month, we typically get a number of deposits for the same amount (for a cleaning, x-rays and exam, for instance)—and when some of the deposits are bulk payments involving multiple patients--looking back to match the MetLife Dental electronic deposits on our bank statement to the daily deposits is a sink hole of time and frustration for our team.
2) The frustration mentioned above is compounded by the fact that the MetLife Dental provider website has a major glitch: When you click a tab to “View Claims,” the next window might allow you search claims by trace number, by dates, or by social security number/member ID number (not the same as the deposit ID number mentioned above). This search function generally works well. The problem is that this window often does not pop up after you click, “View Claims.” Instead, most of the time, a different window appears that allows you to search claims ONLY by social security or member ID number. So if we can’t use a trace number to match payments to claims, we can use dates (it’s still tedious). But with only social security numbers and member IDs to search by, you would have to look up every MetLife patient with payments in the dental system within the past month to accurately reconcile the payments in the dental system with those on the bank statement. It’s not a reasonable use of time. I’ve spoken to MetLife Dental representatives about this glitch. (By the way, speaking to a rep is basically a miracle since there is no phone number for MetLife Dental on the provider website, and the “Help” tab takes you to an error message.) The reps with whom I’ve spoken advise to not allow the login information to automatically populate, clear the browsing history, and/or use a different browser. I have done all of this. I have even moved to 2 different computers that are not on our network, and I get the same results—getting the search screen that allows you to search with variables other than social security and member ID is basically like winning the lottery.
All I want to do is provide great dentistry for my patients and reconcile a bank statement. MetLife Dental is always the roadblock to the reconciliation. It just shouldn’t be that hard.
Corporate MetLife Dental executives, if you’re reading this, I hope you’ll make an effort to improve your provider website. Honestly, I doubt you care. If I ever entertained the idea of enrolling as a network provider with MetLife Dental, all of this—these small things that over time are incredibly irritating—has made me run in the opposite direction. I’ll wrap up this review now and try again to login to the MetLife Dental page—hopefully this time I’ll get the search window that is actually useful for me. My fingers are crossed but by heart is doubtful . . .