Earlier this year, 430 NJDA members answered our Dental Benefits Experience and Support Needs Survey. We asked about fee negotiations, claims, documentation requests, appeals, and how much of your week disappears into payer administration. We also asked whether you wanted NJDA to do something about it. 

Source of data: NJDA Dental Benefits Experience and Support Needs Survey, March 2026 (n=430, 13.8% response rate). Findings are directional and experience-informed and should not be read as prevalence estimates for all New Jersey dentists. 

The answers were not ambiguous. 

More than four out of five of you (82.9%) have tried to negotiate reimbursement with at least one payer. Nearly two in three (64.8%) came away dissatisfied with the result. When we asked what stood in the way, the most common answer was not a lack of effort. It was a lack of transparency: 59.1% of you named limited payer transparency as the primary barrier. You cannot negotiate against a number you are not allowed to see. 

The administrative side told the same story. Three in five of you (60%) report delayed payments. More than half (51.7%) spend 40 or more hours a year on payer communications. That is a full work week, every year, spent on portals, phone trees and resubmissions instead of patients. In a state where hygienist and assistant pipelines are already running at capacity, that lost week is not a back-office inconvenience. It is chair time New Jersey does not have to spare. 

And 61.7% of you report significant financial pressure from reimbursement that has not kept pace with what it costs to run a practice. Nearly three in ten (29.4%) said you are open to selling to a commercial DSO within five years. Succession is part of that. So is exhaustion. 

The survey was directional, not a census. It went out through Monday Morning Member Emails, leadership communications and direct outreach to members who had already contacted NJDA about a payer problem. It tells us what members who live this every day are experiencing, and it tells us clearly. 

What you asked for 

The single clearest finding was about NJDA itself. 94.5% of you said you would use NJDA payer support services if we offered them. Fee schedule benchmarking, administrative help with negotiations, templates for payer communication, a place to turn when a claim goes sideways. You asked your association to show up. 

We are, on two fronts. One is public and legislative. The other is a proposed solution built specifically for NJDA members, and before we go further with it, we want to hear from you. 

What NJDA is pursuing in Trenton 

New Jersey's dental access problem has two causes operating at once: a constrained workforce and an insurance system that has not been held to account for where premium dollars go or what administrative requirements cost. Fixing one without the other will not restore access. On the insurance side, NJDA's agenda follows directly from what you told us. 

Transparency: a Dental Loss Ratio. Medical insurers must show that 80 to 85 cents of every premium dollar goes to care. Dental carriers in New Jersey face no such requirement. NJDA is seeking reintroduction of the Transparency for Dental Health Care Costs Act (prior session S4063) with an 85% minimum loss ratio, the standard Massachusetts has already adopted. Patients deserve to know that 85 cents of every premium dollar goes to care, and the 59.1% of you who named transparency as the barrier deserve to see the same numbers. [verify current sponsor and stage] 

A fair process: S1386. S1386 would create a state-supervised, non-collective administrative support structure through which practices could address the administrative friction you described - utilization management criteria, credentialing standards, payment timing and claim documentation requirements - while every practice continues to make its own contract and fee decisions. It is built on the state-action doctrine, with the Attorney General's oversight as the safeguard. It is a market-function bill for small healthcare businesses, not a labor bill. [verify committee and stage] 

Administrative fixes. The daily friction in your survey responses - prior authorization delays, repeated documentation requests, virtual credit card fees that quietly erode payment, fee schedules that change without notice when a contract is leased to another entity - is where NJDA is pressing for specific, practical fixes with legislators and the Department of Banking and Insurance.  

What New Jersey cannot fix alone. State law reaches fully insured plans. Self-funded employer plans fall under federal ERISA, which is why the same claim can be handled two different ways depending on who your patient works for. The IDA Act (H.R. 7931), co-introduced by two members of New Jersey's congressional delegation, would extend state-level protections to those plans. NJDA supports it, and we will need members to speak up when it moves. 

A member-only opportunity to shape what comes next 

Legislation takes time. You told us the problem is costing you now. So NJDA leadership, with an outside consultant and legal counsel, has been developing a proposed solution designed specifically for NJDA members and the independent practices they run. No final decision has been made, and we are not going to make one without hearing from the members who would be part of it. 

That conversation happens at three Regional Member Meetings: Tuesday, October 20 (Rockaway), Wednesday, October 21 (Cherry Hill) and Thursday, October 22 (Iselin), each 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., in person or on Zoom. One hour of presentation, one hour of your questions. Advance registration is required, and in-person registration closes October 14, 15 and 16 respectively. 

CLICK HERE for a member-only opportunity to offer feedback on NJDA's proposed solutions. (member login required) 

You told us the problem is real. Thank you for that. Now help us decide what to do about it.