MetLife has introduced the MetLife Dental Health Manager, a dental disease management program that provides patients with personalized report cards.
The report cards graphically illustrate participants' risk for oral disease, helping them understand and track their progress and providing employers with statistics on employees' dental health.
The new program is available to new and existing MetLife customers with 500 or more employees, at no additional cost as a standalone program. Employers also have the option to coordinate the program with a disease management vendor, which requires a one-time set-up fee.
"With the desire among employers to manage continually rising health-related costs, the importance of dental benefits to employees, and the association of oral health to overall health, a dental disease management program represents a logical, timely option," said Dr. David Guarrera, D.D.S., vice president, MetLife Dental Product Management.
The MetLife Dental Health Manager consists of two primary components. The report card illustrates a participant’s risk and disease score utilizing an interactive risk assessment and data analysis derived from dental utilization data as well as systemic disease data.
The second component is the online MetLife Oral Health Library, which contains educational articles and tools designed to help participants take a more active role in managing their oral health. The library also encourages employees to ask informed questions about their benefits, dental care and risk for dental disease, and offers relevant information specific to employee oral health needs.
While users obtain private, specific information for assessing their own progress, employers will receive aggregate reporting providing them with the ability to measure and monitor the health of an employee population, or segments of that population, and the utilization of benefits over time so they can make better decisions about dental benefit plans.
To help employers understand more about how dental disease management programs can complement other wellness initiatives and be implemented most effectively, MetLife has also made available a free guide, Dental Disease Management: What Makes an Effective Program, which can be obtained at www.whymetlife.com/dentaldm.
