By Greg Bishop/Illinois Radio Network
SPRINGFIELD – Dentists across the state, and around the country, who do work on patients with Illinois state employee insurance are forced to treat patients with minimal reimbursement for completed work – and they’re looking for a way out.
For more than 20 months, state lawmakers have not passed a full year’s budget, including money to pay for state employee group health insurance.
Springfield Dentist Raj Dhamrait said Illinois state government owes him more than $400,000. He said he’s able to get by but others are having to take on debt because of the state’s delinquency.
“I’m fortunate that I’ve been practicing for 28 years, but for the younger guys who haven’t had that many years, and they don’t have savings, I know some of them have resorted [to] going to the bank just to keep their practice functioning,” he said.
The Illinois State Dental Society (ISDS) said the state owes more than $174 million to over 9,000 Illinois dentists. And it’s not just Illinois dentists hit by the state’s delinquency. ISDS says because of state retirees who live in other states getting work done, the state owes more than 24,000 dentists nationwide nearly $193 million.
Dhamrait said something has to be done. He said he isn’t investing his business “to expand my practice, to expand my workforce, we basically just try to coast along with what we have.”
Working in Springfield means more than half of Dhamrait’s patients are state employees. Some of his patients know the situation “and they’re feeling bad for me not getting paid and some of them are putting off treatment,” he said.
A measure with bipartisan support would let dentists who haven’t been paid by the state for six months to opt out of the network covering state employees without penalty from the state or the network.
The senate bill passed committee last week.
ISDS said the measure would allow for upfront payments in full and make the employee, not the dentist, get reimbursement from the state.
The most recent Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability report on the state employee’s group health liability estimates, including dental, for fiscal year 2017 is over $2.8 billion.
