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Dental managed care

Fee-for-service is how most of California gets Medi-Cal dental, and it stays the default even in the counties that have something else. Two counties add a dental plan layer on top: Sacramento, where joining is required, and Los Angeles, where it is optional and most members never join. Here is who runs those plans and what the rules are in each.

Two regulators, two jobs

DHCS Department of Health Care Services
Runs Medi-Cal. It chooses the dental plans, holds their contracts and checks their work. Most of this site is about that system.
DMHC Department of Managed Health Care
Licenses California's managed care plans, private ones as well as Medi-Cal ones, and fines them when they break the rules.

These companies also sell private dental plans, the kind you or an employer pay for, and DMHC fines them over those too. So a fine on this site is not automatically a Medi-Cal fine. Every DentaQuest fine we list, for instance, is about something that happened before it had a Medi-Cal contract of its own.

The short version

Two counties out of fifty-eight

California delivers Medi-Cal dental benefits through two systems. Fee-for-service is the original one, and it still covers most of the state. Dental managed care, or DMC, is the other, and the Department of Health Care Services runs it in exactly two counties: Sacramento and Los Angeles.

DHCS describes the start this way: in 1995, “pursuant to a state law change, DHCS implemented DMC to explore the effectiveness of DMC as a delivery system of dental services.” The law itself is less modest. It was written into a 1994 budget bill, it named the goal as major cost savings, and it told the department to put every Medi-Cal member in the state into dental managed care by October 1995. Three decades later the program covers two counties out of fifty-eight, and in one of them most members are not in it.

Under DMC, the state pays each plan a set amount every month for every member signed up to it, whether or not that member ever sees a dentist. DHCS calls this a negotiated per capita rate. The plans are licensed by the California Department of Managed Health Care under the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975. The benefits themselves are not different: DHCS states that covered services under managed care are the same ones provided under fee-for-service.

What the law actually said

“The department shall implement a dental managed care program for Medi-Cal beneficiaries to achieve major cost savings, while ensuring access and quality of care … The department shall make every effort to achieve operational contracts to place all Medi-Cal beneficiaries in dental managed care by October 1, 1995 … If the department has achieved one or more operational managed care contracts in a county or region, fee-for-service dental services shall not be an option for selection by a beneficiary.”

Welfare and Institutions Code section 14087.46, subdivisions (a) and (e), as added by Assembly Bill 2377, Chapter 147, Statutes of 1994, a Committee on Ways and Means budget bill signed 9 July 1994 as an urgency measure. Ellipses ours. The cost savings sentence reads exactly this way today. The instruction to enroll all beneficiaries survives in the current text without the word all. The word explore appears nowhere in the section.

What was promised, and what the law asked for in return

The statute wanted three things. Contracts “in each county or region that the department determines to be feasible.” Mandatory enrollment wherever a plan operated, with fee-for-service kept only “if needed to ensure adequate access in rural or underserved areas, or for unique populations.” And proof: for each of the first three years, an evaluation to the Legislature “on a county-by-county basis in terms of access, quality of care, and cost savings.” A county study in 2015 summed up the motive in one sentence: “Under increasing pressure to control costs, in the late 1980s and early 1990s DHCS looked to managed care as a method to reduce expenditures, with the expectation that this system would also provide timely access to care, including preventive services.”

The benefits claimed for dental managed care at the time, as that study set them out from the 1995 dental literature, were a dental home for every child, higher use of services, more preventive care, quality assurance, less paperwork for dentists, better data, and this: “Plans can be held accountable for ensuring that enrolled children are receiving appropriate and timely referrals for pediatric specialty services.” On cost, the promise was that the State “can predict and limit its overall costs by contracting at a fixed, pre-determined payment per member per month. Financial risk is shifted from the State to the dental plans.” What the specialist networks look like thirty years on.

What the program became: two counties, and the mandatory rule in only one of them. Federal program records list Los Angeles’s dental plans as voluntary for every enrolled population, under no waiver, in both 2005 and 2019. Sacramento’s run under a federal demonstration waiver with enrollment mandatory. We have found no record of Los Angeles ever being otherwise, and no document explaining why the statute’s rule stopped at the county line. The same county study notes that Sacramento's version “was put into place only in Sacramento County in 1994 as a ‘pilot project’ but is now an established, ongoing program.” The first independent evaluation did not appear until 2001, six years in, and its authors noted that state agencies had by then conducted only limited studies. We have not found the three annual evaluations the statute required.

2

Counties of 58

1995

Program launched

3

Plans per county

1

County where it is required

The rule depends on your address

Same three plans, two different rules

Both counties are offered the same three dental plans. What changes is whether you are required to pick one.

Mandatory

Sacramento County

Geographic Managed Care (GMC). Medi-Cal members in Sacramento County who are eligible for dental services must select one of the three available plans. DHCS notes there are a few exceptions.

Mandatory does not mean fee-for-service disappeared. Those exceptions stay in it, a granted Beneficiary Dental Exception moves a member back into it, and when a plan cannot provide a service from its own network the contract has it pay an outside dentist at the Medi-Cal fee-for-service rate. What the contract says about going outside the network.

If you do not choose a plan by the deadline, DHCS chooses one for you.

There is a formal way out. A Beneficiary Dental Exception lets a member request to leave a DMC plan and move to fee-for-service, where they can pick their own dentist on an ongoing basis.

Mandatory has not been continuous. From 1 December 2023 until 30 June 2025 any Sacramento member could leave for fee-for-service, because DHCS said the plans were not meeting quality standards. See the timeline.

Opt in

Los Angeles County

Prepaid Health Plan (PHP). Dental managed care in Los Angeles County is voluntary. DHCS set it up so that members had the option of an HMO-style plan as an alternative to fee-for-service.

You have to opt in. If you do nothing, you stay in regular Medi-Cal Dental fee-for-service.

Los Angeles members choosing during the 2025 transition who made no selection were placed in fee-for-service by default.

To enroll, switch or ask which plan you are in, call Medi-Cal Health Care Options at 1-800-430-4263 (TTY 1-800-430-7077). This applies in both counties.

A third arrangement

One county does it a third way

Dental managed care runs in two counties. That is not the same as saying every other county is fee-for-service. San Mateo County has had its own arrangement since 2022, and it is neither of the two described above.

In San Mateo County dental is not a separate plan you join. It follows your medical plan. The Health Plan of San Mateo, HPSM, is a County Organized Health System, the county's own plan, and until the end of 2023 it was the only Medi-Cal managed care plan there. At the start of 2022 dental was folded into the benefits it already covered. Since January 2024 Kaiser has held its own Medi-Cal contract in the county as well, and its members get dental a different way, covered below.

That is a different thing from dental managed care, set up under a different law. Sacramento and Los Angeles have standalone dental plans holding dental managed care contracts, and those plans cover dental and nothing else. HPSM is one plan covering medical, behavioral health and dental together. DHCS calls it a dental integration program rather than dental managed care, and authorized it as a test.

How DHCS announced it to dentists

“Effective January 1, 2022, the San Mateo County Organized Health System, Health Plan of San Mateo (HPSM), in collaboration with the Department of Health Care Services, will integrate dental services into the managed care plan's covered benefits. Medi-Cal dental Fee-For-Service (FFS) providers who wish to continue serving Medi-Cal members in San Mateo County must join HPSM's dental provider network.”

Medi-Cal Dental Provider Bulletin, Volume 37, Number 21, October 2021. The same bulletin gives the authority: Senate Bill 849, Chapter 47, Statutes of 2018, which added section 14184.90 to the Welfare and Institutions Code and let DHCS set up a dental integration program in San Mateo County as a component of the Medi-Cal 2020 demonstration project. DHCS says the program is designed to test the effect on access, quality and use.

If you have Kaiser there, you are on fee-for-service

Since the start of 2024, San Mateo members assigned to Kaiser are not in HPSM Dental at all. In the plan's own words to its dentists: “Effective January 1, 2024, Kaiser Permanente will have a Medi-Cal contract with the California Department of Health Care Services. This means that any Health Plan of San Mateo (HPSM) members assigned to Kaiser will no longer be assigned to HPSM Dental and will need to receive dental services through fee-for-service dental.” So one county runs both systems at once, and which one you are in depends on your medical plan. In August 2026 the State counted 123,711 San Mateo members in HPSM and 19,173 in Kaiser, so about one member in eight is on fee-for-service dental in the county that integrated it.

There is no Beneficiary Dental Exception in San Mateo. The exception exists only where the State compels you into a dental plan, and the statute that creates it names Sacramento County and nowhere else. It would not fit San Mateo anyway. If you are in Kaiser, your dental is already fee-for-service, which is where a BDE sends people, so there is nothing to leave. If you are in HPSM, your dental is part of your medical plan rather than a dental plan you joined, and no exception exists to take it out. How the exception works, and who it is for.

So the real count is three, not two

Of California's 58 counties, two have dental managed care, Sacramento and Los Angeles. One, San Mateo, builds dental into its county plan, with Kaiser members on fee-for-service. The remaining 55 are fee-for-service only. HPSM describes itself as “California's first and only dental plan for Medi-Cal members that is fully integrated with medical and mental health care benefits,” so as far as we can tell San Mateo is the only county in the middle column.

We do not cover San Mateo beyond this. This site follows the dental managed care program, and HPSM is a different program under a different statute, with its own regulator relationship and its own reporting. We note it here because saying dental managed care runs in two counties is true, and saying everywhere else is fee-for-service is not.

Sacramento County

Your three options

Geographic Managed Care. You must pick one of these three.

Continuing plan

Health Net Dental

Owned by Centene Corporation since 2016. In California since 1979.

(833) 493-0428TTY (800) 466-7566

Company profile
Continuing plan

Liberty Dental Plan

Founded by dentists in 2002. Serving Medi-Cal here since 2005.

(877) 550-3875TTY (877) 855-8039

Company profile
New in 2025

California Dental Network (DentaQuest)

Trades as DentaQuest. Owned by Sun Life Financial. Joined the roster in July 2025.

(833) 479-1984TTY (800) 466-7566

Company profile

Los Angeles County

Your three options

Prepaid Health Plan. These are available only if you opt in. Doing nothing keeps you in fee-for-service.

Continuing plan

Health Net Dental

Owned by Centene Corporation since 2016. In California since 1979.

(844) 233-4522TTY (800) 466-7566

Company profile
Continuing plan

Liberty Dental Plan

Founded by dentists in 2002. Serving Medi-Cal here since 2005.

(888) 703-6999TTY (855) 855-8039

Company profile
New in 2025

California Dental Network (DentaQuest)

Trades as DentaQuest. Owned by Sun Life Financial. Joined the roster in July 2025.

(855) 388-6257TTY (800) 466-7566

Company profile

A managed care county where managed care is the minority option

In August 2026 the State counted 294,952 Los Angeles members in these three dental plans, against 3,516,996 people enrolled in Medi-Cal managed care of every kind across the county. Dental managed care is about 8 percent of that. Sacramento, where joining is required, runs at 99 percent. Opt in and opt out are not small differences.

July 2025 put it to the test. Access Dental Plan was discontinued, and Los Angeles members who made no selection were placed in fee-for-service. Access had been carrying 101,100 Los Angeles members that June. The three surviving plans gained roughly 7,900 between them. County dental managed care enrollment fell by 93,192 in a single month, a drop equal to 92 percent of what Access had been carrying. Los Angeles medical managed care went up by 12,728 in the same month, so this was not Medi-Cal shrinking. It was dental.

What the figures cannot tell us is where those people went. These are county totals, not tracked individuals. Some will have chosen fee-for-service on purpose. Some will never have opened the envelope. Some will have left Medi-Cal that month for a job, for private insurance, or for nothing at all. The enrollment report counts who is in a plan. It does not record why anybody left one, and we are not going to guess at the mix. What it does show is that the county's dental managed care rolls fell by 93,192 in the month its members were required to act, while the county's medical managed care rolls grew.

California Health and Human Services open data, Medi-Cal Managed Care Enrollment Report, enrollment months June 2025, July 2025 and August 2026, Los Angeles County. Dental plan type for the dental figures, all plan types for the comparison, which counts managed care enrollment rather than the whole Medi-Cal caseload and is therefore a floor. That members who made no selection went to fee-for-service is DHCS's own transition rule, in the sources below.

Who you are actually dealing with

The companies behind the plans

Every figure and date below comes from the company, its parent, or DHCS. Sources are listed at the foot of this page.

Health Net Dental

Contracted entity: Health Net of California, Inc.

Founded
1979
Headquarters
Woodland Hills, Los Angeles
Owner
Centene Corporation (NYSE: CNC)
Owned since
24 March 2016

Health Net is the oldest name on this list and the only one that started in California. It grew into one of the state's large managed care organizations, and today reports more than 117,000 network providers and more than three million members across California.

In March 2016, Centene Corporation completed a 6.8 billion dollar acquisition of Health Net, Inc. Health Net became a wholly owned subsidiary of Centene and stopped trading as a public company. Centene described the deal at the time as creating the largest Medicaid managed care organization in the country. So the plan a Sacramento member is required to choose from is now a business unit of a St. Louis based Fortune 500 company.

Health Net holds contracts in both counties: a Geographic Managed Care contract in Sacramento and a Prepaid Health Plan contract in Los Angeles. It was one of the two plans that carried over unchanged through the July 2025 transition.

Sacramento members

(833) 493-0428 TTY (800) 466-7566

Los Angeles members

(844) 233-4522 TTY (800) 466-7566

Liberty Dental Plan

Contracted entity: Liberty Dental Plan of California, Inc.

Founded
2002
Headquarters
Tustin, California
Owner
Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (majority) with Elevance Health at 40%
In Medi-Cal DMC since
2005

Liberty was founded in 2002 by dentists and health industry professionals, and it is the only one of the three that is not a subsidiary of a health insurance company. It administers dental benefits in all fifty states and reports more than seven million Medicaid, Medicare Advantage, commercial and exchange members.

Liberty has held the California Medi-Cal dental managed care business since 2005, which makes it the longest continuously serving plan of the three. On 8 October 2024 it announced that DHCS had re-awarded its dental managed care contract covering both Sacramento and Los Angeles counties, on a multi-year term that went live in July 2025.

Like Health Net, Liberty carried over through the 2025 transition. Members already enrolled with it were not moved.

Not being a subsidiary is not the same as being independent, and Liberty is often taken for the independent choice. Its ultimate parent is Project Freedom Holdings, LLC. The private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe holds the majority, and Elevance Health, the insurer behind Anthem Blue Cross, owns 40%, an investment it made in January 2023. Elevance also holds options that could let it buy out the majority owners in 2026 and 2027. See who backs each plan.

Sacramento members

(877) 550-3875 TTY/TDD (877) 855-8039

Los Angeles members

(888) 703-6999 TTY/TDD (855) 855-8039

California Dental Network (DentaQuest) New in 2025

Contracted entity: California Dental Network, Inc., doing business as DentaQuest

Trades as
DentaQuest
California base
Irvine, California
Owner
Sun Life Financial Inc. (TSX and NYSE: SLF)
Owned since
1 June 2022

This is the newest name on the roster and the one worth reading the fine print on. The entity holding the DHCS contract is California Dental Network, Inc. (DentaQuest), a Knox-Keene licensed plan based in Irvine. It trades under the DentaQuest brand and is part of the DentaQuest family of companies.

DentaQuest itself was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in Boston. On 1 June 2022, Sun Life Financial completed its acquisition of DentaQuest from CareQuest Institute for Oral Health, a United States nonprofit, and from Centerbridge Partners, a private investment firm. At the time of the sale DentaQuest reported more than 33 million members across 36 states and more than 2,400 employees, and Sun Life described it as the largest provider of Medicaid dental benefits in the country.

California Dental Network (DentaQuest) joined the Medi-Cal roster on 1 July 2025, taking the slot vacated by Access Dental Plan. That means members who had been with Access had to move, and in Sacramento County that move was not optional.

New to Medi-Cal is not the same as new. The company has been a licensed California dental plan for decades, under license number 933 0286, and it used to be called Alternative Dental Care of Calif., Inc. That is not our description. It is how the regulator addressed the company in the enforcement letter behind the 95,000 dollar fine, and the earliest fine on its public list dates from 2006. It has sold dental coverage in this state, and been fined by the regulator for how it did so, since long before it had a Medi-Cal contract. What changed in July 2025 is that Medi-Cal members were added to it. We keep those two records apart on the ledger, because they are not the same thing.

Sacramento members

(833) 479-1984 TTY/TDD (800) 466-7566

Los Angeles members

(855) 388-6257 TTY/TDD (800) 466-7566

Before you choose

Two of these three plans are run by the same administrator. See who actually runs each plan and what changed in July 2025.

How we got here

Thirty years of a pilot

  1. 1994

    Assembly Bill 2377, a budget bill, adds section 14087.46 to the Welfare and Institutions Code: dental managed care “to achieve major cost savings,” contracts in every feasible county, all Medi-Cal members enrolled by October 1995, and fee-for-service no longer an option where a plan operates. Signed 9 July 1994.

  2. 1995

    DHCS implements dental managed care, describing the purpose as exploring “the effectiveness of DMC as a delivery system of dental services.” Fee-for-service had been the exclusive model in all fifty-eight counties. The program reaches Sacramento and Los Angeles and no other county.

  3. 2005

    Liberty Dental Plan begins serving the California Medi-Cal dental managed care business, a run that is still going.

  4. March 2016

    Centene Corporation completes its 6.8 billion dollar acquisition of Health Net, Inc. Health Net becomes a wholly owned subsidiary and is no longer publicly traded.

  5. 2020

    DHCS proposes to end the program. A trailer bill fact sheet for the 2020-21 budget, titled Restoration of Dental Fee-For-Service in Sacramento and Los Angeles Counties, would move both counties back to fee-for-service “no sooner than January 1, 2021,” because fee-for-service members were using dental care more than plan members. The State’s own figures are below.

  6. 2021

    The proposal does not become law. The Budget Act of 2021, through section 372 of Assembly Bill 133, requires DHCS to extend the dental managed care contracts to 31 December 2022.

  7. June 2022

    Sun Life Financial completes its acquisition of DentaQuest from the nonprofit CareQuest Institute for Oral Health and private investment firm Centerbridge Partners.

  8. 2022

    A trailer bill extends the contracts to the end of 2023 and orders a competitive procurement for new ones, written into section 14087.46 of the Welfare and Institutions Code by Senate Bill 184. That procurement produces the contracts that take effect on 1 July 2025.

  9. 1 December 2023

    DHCS lets Sacramento members leave dental managed care for fee-for-service. Its own presentation to members gives the reason in plain words: the managed care plan did not meet acceptable standards for quality of services, and the example it offers is the standard for making sure members received cavity prevention. The exit is temporary by design. Members can stay in fee-for-service only until DHCS buys new plans.

  10. October 2024

    Liberty announces that DHCS has re-awarded its dental managed care contract for both counties, on a multi-year term starting July 2025.

  11. 20 June 2025

    Deadline for affected members to choose. Sacramento members who did not choose were assigned a plan. Los Angeles members who did not choose were placed in fee-for-service.

  12. 1 July 2025

    The current roster takes effect. Access Dental Plan is discontinued. California Dental Network, trading as DentaQuest, joins Health Net and Liberty in both counties. Sacramento resumes mandatory enrollment, in DHCS's own word, so the members who had moved to fee-for-service have to pick a managed care plan again.

The State’s own verdict, 2020

“The Dental FFS delivery system continues to maintain higher utilization than DMC for both children and adults … The utilization lag is larger in Sacramento County where DMC enrollment is mandatory … Since the beneficiary utilization rates in DMC continually lag behind dental FFS, DHCS seeks to restore the delivery of Medi-Cal dental services in both Sacramento and Los Angeles counties to a FFS system. DHCS believes that this restoration will result in increased beneficiary utilization.”

DHCS, proposed trailer bill legislation fact sheet, Restoration of Dental Fee-For-Service in Sacramento and Los Angeles Counties, published for the 2020-21 budget and archived on 28 June 2020. Ellipses ours. The proposal would have moved both counties to fee-for-service “no sooner than January 1, 2021.” The sheet counted 791,651 members in the two counties’ plans as of September 2019, and its argument in support was that DHCS “anticipates both the utilization of dental services by Medi-Cal beneficiaries and the number of enrolled providers will increase in Sacramento and Los Angeles counties.”

Share of members with an annual dental visit and with preventive services in calendar year 2018, as DHCS tabulated it in the proposal
Delivery system Annual dental visit, children 0 to 20 Annual dental visit, adults 21 and over Preventive services, children 0 to 20 Preventive services, adults 21 and over
Fee-for-service48.05%23.46%44.60%14.03%
Sacramento plans39.80%20.38%33.77%8.27%
Los Angeles plans44.42%21.14%39.09%9.53%
Both counties’ plans combined41.86%20.78%36.14%8.93%

From the same fact sheet, which describes the figures as based on calendar year 2018 encounter data that the plans are contractually required to send to DHCS. DHCS’s own summary of the gap: fee-for-service annual dental visits for children were 6.19 percentage points higher than the plans’ combined figure and preventive services 8.46 points higher; in Sacramento alone, 8.25 and 10.83 points.

What happened next

The proposal did not become law. The Budget Act of 2021, through section 372 of Assembly Bill 133, required DHCS to extend the dental managed care contracts to 31 December 2022. A 2022 trailer bill extended them to the end of 2023 and ordered a new competitive procurement, which produced the contracts that took effect on 1 July 2025 and the three plans on this page. DHCS’s fact sheet for that extension counted about 896,000 members in the two counties’ plans as of October 2021, and gave as its justification the same sentence the 2020 sheet had used to justify ending the program: “DHCS is committed to increasing Medi-Cal beneficiary utilization of dental services statewide.” The document that said the way to do that was to end the program and the document that extended it carry that line word for word.

Common questions

Questions we keep getting

Answers here are sourced from DHCS. This section is still being expanded.

Do I have to join a dental managed care plan?

It depends entirely on your county. In Sacramento County enrollment is mandatory, with few exceptions, and you must select one of the three plans. In Los Angeles County it is voluntary. You have to opt in, and if you do nothing you stay in fee-for-service.

Are the covered benefits different from regular Medi-Cal Dental?

No. DHCS states that covered dental services provided by managed care plans are the same services provided under the fee-for-service program, as defined in Welfare and Institutions Code section 14132(h) and Title 22 of the California Code of Regulations, section 51059.

What does change is the network. Under managed care you have to use dentists inside your plan's provider network.

Can I get out of a plan in Sacramento County?

There is a formal route called a Beneficiary Dental Exception, or BDE. It lets a member request to opt out of a Medi-Cal dental managed care plan and move into fee-for-service, where they may select their own dentist on an ongoing basis. DHCS publishes the instructions on the Medi-Cal Dental BDE page, and we have set out who qualifies and what the process takes on our Beneficiary Dental Exception page.

What happened to Access Dental Plan?

Access Dental Plan was discontinued as a Medi-Cal dental managed care plan on 1 July 2025. Its place on the roster was taken by California Dental Network, trading as DentaQuest. Members enrolled with Access had to move to another plan, or, in Los Angeles County only, to fee-for-service.

Who regulates these plans, and who do I complain to?

All Medi-Cal dental managed care plans are licensed by the California Department of Managed Health Care under the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975. The DMHC Help Center number for members is 1-888-466-2219.

For questions about which plan you are in or to change plans, call Medi-Cal Health Care Options at 1-800-430-4263 (TTY 1-800-430-7077).

How are the plans paid?

A flat monthly amount for each member, whether that member uses their dental benefit or not. The industry word for it is capitation. DHCS states that each dental plan receives a negotiated monthly per capita rate from the state for every recipient enrolled in that plan, and that payment does not depend on whether the member receives any dental care that month.

Show your work

Sources

Everything stated as fact on this page traces to one of these. If you find an error, tell us and we will correct it.

  1. California Department of Health Care Services, Medi-Cal Dental Managed Care. Program history, county scope, enrollment rules, Knox-Keene licensing.
  2. California Legislature, Assembly Bill 2377, Committee on Ways and Means, Chapter 147, Statutes of 1994, approved by the Governor 9 July 1994 as an urgency measure. Digest item 12 and the section adding 14087.46. The current text is at Welfare and Institutions Code section 14087.46.
  3. Barbara Aved Associates, Sacramento Children and Dental Care: Better Served than 5 Years Ago? An Updated Study of Dental Geographic Managed Care (GMC) for Sacramento County Children, December 2015, prepared at the suggestion of the Sacramento Medi-Cal Dental Advisory Committee. Pages 7 and 8 for the cost motive and the pilot project description, page 10 for Table 1, the promises and expected benefits of dental managed care. Linked through the Internet Archive because the county’s copy is no longer online.
  4. William M. Mercer, Inc., GMC Dental Program Evaluation, April 2001, for the Medi-Cal Policy Institute. Abstract only; the full report link is dead. Describes itself as the first independent evaluation of the program.
  5. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, National Summary of State Medicaid Managed Care Programs as of June 30, 2005, pages 414 to 416: the California Prepaid Health Plan Program, listed under voluntary programs, dental capitation with populations mandatorily enrolled recorded as none. And California Managed Care Program Features as of 2019, pages 213 to 221: Dental Managed Care/Los Angeles, every population voluntary; Dental Managed Care/Sacramento, mandatory populations under an 1115(a) demonstration waiver. The second through the Internet Archive.
  6. DHCS, Proposed Trailer Bill Legislation fact sheet: Restoration of Dental Fee-For-Service in Sacramento and Los Angeles Counties, 2020-21 budget, as archived by the Internet Archive on 28 June 2020, because the DHCS site blocks automated checks. The utilization comparison, the 791,651 figure, the proposed statutory changes and the argument in support.
  7. DHCS, Proposed Trailer Bill Legislation fact sheet: Extension of Dental Managed Care in Sacramento and Los Angeles Counties, 2022-23 budget, archived 1 December 2023. The 2021 extension under section 372 of AB 133, the extension to the end of 2023, the 2024 procurement, the 896,000 figure and the justification sentence.
  8. Liberty Dental Plan, California Dental Managed Care Report: Preserving and Strengthening vs Elimination, February 2020. The plan’s response to the proposal, cited only to show the proposal was public by February 2020.
  9. Medi-Cal Dental, Dental Managed Care (DMC) Overview. Capitation payment model, GMC and PHP definitions, benefit parity with fee-for-service.
  10. DHCS, Managed Care Plan Directory. Contracted plan names and member contact numbers for both counties.
  11. Medi-Cal Dental, Provider Bulletin, Volume 37, Number 21, October 2021. The San Mateo dental integration program, its start date, the requirement that fee-for-service dentists join HPSM's network, and the Senate Bill 849 authority. Health Plan of San Mateo, Upcoming Changes For HPSM Dental Members Assigned to Kaiser, 6 December 2023, for Kaiser members moving to fee-for-service, and Our Integrated Dental Plan for the plan's description of itself. DHCS, Medi-Cal Dental Member Handbook, 2025, page 3, for the rule that HPSM members get dental from HPSM and members who switched to Kaiser get it through fee-for-service. The HPSM and Kaiser enrollment counts are from the Medi-Cal Managed Care Enrollment Report, August 2026.
  12. DHCS, Dental Medi-Cal Managed Care Plan Transition. July 2025 roster change, choice deadline, default assignment rules.
  13. Centene Corporation, Centene Completes Acquisition Of Health Net, 24 March 2016.
  14. Liberty Dental Plan, contract award announcement, 8 October 2024. Founding year, scale, and the 2005 start date in California.
  15. Sun Life Financial, Sun Life completes acquisition of DentaQuest, 1 June 2022.
  16. Medi-Cal Dental, Beneficiary Dental Exception.
  17. Medi-Cal Dental, Dental Managed Care Option to Switch to Dental Fee-For-Service for Sacramento County Residents, October 2023. The reason DHCS gave members for opening the exit: the plan did not meet acceptable standards for quality of services.
  18. DHCS, All Plan Letter 25-003, Transition Policy Guide. Sacramento resumes mandatory enrollment effective 1 July 2025.

Been moved, denied or left on hold?

If your plan changed in 2025, or you cannot get an appointment inside your network, we want to hear about it.

Tell us what happened