United Concordia, the dental division of Highmark, has lost an appeal to overturn a U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) decision that denied the company a $3.2 billion deal to manage dental benefits for families of U.S. soldiers, according to a story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
In January, the DOD awarded a new Tricare dental benefits contract to Metropolitan Life Insurance rather than United Concordia. United Concordia has held the contract for 15 years and had submitted a fixed-price bid of $3.23 billion covering the next five years. MetLife's bid was $3.09 billion, according to the Post-Gazette.
About 200 United Concordia employees are dedicated to the Tricare contract, which provides dental services to 2 million military members, retirees, reservists, and their families, according to the Post-Gazette. Company officials said it is not clear at this point how many jobs might be affected by the loss of the Tricare contract.
