On January 1, 2027, Delta Dental of California and its affiliated companies make electronic funds transfer (EFT) their standard way to pay dentists. Offices that keep receiving paper checks will pay a $15 weekly processing fee, where state law allows it.
If you're in network with Delta and still getting paper checks, you have a decision to make, and not much time to make it.
Who this affects
The change applies to claims paid by the Delta Dental of California enterprise companies:
- Delta Dental of California
- Delta Dental of DC, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia
- Delta Dental Insurance Company
It covers the Delta Dental PPO, Delta Dental Premier, Delta Dental Medicare Advantage PPO and NY Select networks. Delta's enrollment page lists offices in Alabama, California, DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and West Virginia as enrolling through its Provider Tools portal.
The fee applies to contracted, in network providers who choose paper checks. Delta says out of network providers aren't included at this time, but it will give advance notice if that changes.
What the fee means in real dollars
$15 a week is $780 a year, per office. For a multi location practice, that adds up quickly, and it buys you nothing but a slower payment and a piece of paper someone still has to post by hand.
Why dentists are pushing back
The ADA opposes the fee. It has argued that reimbursement methods should be the provider's choice, not the payer's, and that the fee shifts an insurer's administrative costs onto practices. It wrote to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners asking for oversight, and has published template letters for dentists to send.
State associations have pushed too. The Pennsylvania Dental Association asked Delta to revoke the fee, arguing it conflicts with Pennsylvania's 2024 law protecting payment method choice. In New York, a 2026 law requires insurers to offer in network providers at least one payment method with no fee.
It's worth following, but it's not worth betting your cash flow on. Plan for the change to happen.
Delta isn't the only one
Aetna has already stopped paying out of network dentists by paper check. Those offices can join the network for fee free EFT or pay a processing fee. Expect more payers to follow.
One thing to know: when payers push away from checks, some steer offices toward virtual credit cards, which usually carry card processing fees of a few percent. Federal rules say a health plan must honor a provider's request for standard ACH EFT and can't force a virtual card. If a payer offers you a card, you can ask for ACH instead.
How to enroll in Delta Dental EFT
- Log in to Delta's Provider Tools portal, or create an account.
- Click the EFT and ERA icon.
- Enter your practice and bank information.
Enrollment takes about 2 to 4 weeks to process. If you want EFT in place by January 1, plan to enroll by early December. Practices with more than one location need to enroll each location. EFT is deposit only, so Delta can't withdraw money from your account.
Once you're enrolled, you'll also get an ERA, the electronic version of the EOB (the 835 file), for each payment, usually within one business day. Paper claim statements stop.
The real challenge: reconciliation
For most offices, the hesitation about EFT isn't the deposit. It's reconciliation.
With paper checks, the EOB arrives in the same envelope. With EFT, the money lands in your bank account and the explanation arrives separately, as an ERA. Someone has to match each deposit to the right claims and post each payment to the right procedures. If your team does that by logging into portals and cross referencing by hand, EFT can feel like more work, not less.
It doesn't have to be. The ERA is built to be read by software. If your practice management system and clearinghouse are set up to receive ERAs, payments can post automatically, and staff only handle the exceptions.
Your checklist before January 1
- Confirm whether your office is in network with an affected Delta Dental company
- Enroll in EFT and ERA through Provider Tools, for every location
- Make sure your clearinghouse is set up to receive Delta ERAs
- Set up ERA posting in your practice management system
- Decide who reconciles deposits against ERAs, and how often
- Watch for similar notices from your other payers
The bottom line
The paper check era is ending, whether or not the fee survives. The offices that come out ahead will be the ones that treat this as a chance to automate posting, not just a new bank deposit.
Dental Maverick helps offices automate the insurance work around EFT, including reconciling payments, so the switch saves time instead of creating it. Join the waitlist at dentalmaverick.ai.