Guardian & First Commonwealth

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It has been two months and I'm still awaiting to have my tooth filled. I don't even know where to start ... I went back and forth with several dental providers that is unwilling to accept this insurance. Then when I was given a dentist I went for X-ray and a specialist only to await approval from this crappy dental insurance named First Commonwealth whether they will pay for my root canal. I am still waiting. How can you be an insurance if you don't give the care the person needs when they need it?

It may be that this insurer is overwhelmed with new subscribers from the Health Insurance Marketplace (Affordable Care Act) and that things will settle down, but as of this writing in February of 2015 I regret having signed up with Guardian First Commonwealth for my dental coverage. First Commonwealth is a DHMO and as such you must select a primary care dentist (PCD) from their list of network providers and have that provider designated your PCD prior to your first appointment. This is not easily accomplished.

It makes sense that one should be able to create an online account and then through the Guardian web site designate the provider you wish to serve as your PCD. However, nothing about the web site is particularly modern or user friendly. I find the provider information is often inaccurate. Really surprising is that the unique six digit ID's associated with each practice and provider is often incorrect on their own web site.

My experience to date is that it is almost impossible to reach a person at this company. I called every day for two weeks and after suffering their hold repeat announcements each day ended up in a general voice mailbox where the caller is told to leave their name and number and the call will be returned as soon as an agent is available. My emails went unanswered as well. I finally reached someone by calling a different number I found that is intended for non-DHMO Guardian customers.

The representative I spoke to said that her department is often asked to pitch in and help out the DHMO group as they are more or less a mess (those are my words, not her exact words). She told me that they get about 2,000 voice mails daily and that she can’t even guess how many emails they receive each day. Again, all I can figure is that these are all new customer who, like me, signed up through the Health Insurance Marketplace.

Good luck finding a good dentist with normal business hours. The customer service is horrible. I changed dentists and they screwed up and gave us the wrong one after calling a few times they finally got it right. I tried to email them to ask them a question and after a day I get a response saying to call the 800# What is the point of having a contact us area on the website? I changed dentists yet again and still waiting for my new cards after being told I would get them a couple weeks ago. Not a great company