Health

Alpharetta, GA--(HISPANIC PR WIRE - BUSINESS WIRE)--February 15, 2005--In an effort to provide important dental health information to all its customers, Delta Dental Insurance Company today unveiled a Spanish version of the enrollee portal on its web site.

Delta Dental's new web pages offer enrollees and customers complete access in Spanish to corporate news, dental health and benefits information and links to web services, including its SmileKids dental health section for children and teachers.

"Providing clear dental health information to enrollees as well as to the general public is an important public service," said Robert Elliott, president of Delta Dental Insurance Company. "Especially in states such as Florida and Texas, where English is a second language for so many of our current and prospective customers, we want to improve access to web pages so they can be well-informed consumers of dental services."

The Spanish-language version of the corporate web site is part of an ongoing initiative begun by Delta Dental years ago to increase access to dental health information and empower enrollees to make educated dental benefit decisions. As part of this initiative, the company offers printed materials -- such as enrollee brochures and dental health tips -- written in Spanish, the second most commonly spoken language in the nation. Delta Dental employs many bilingual staff members, including Spanish-speaking customer service representatives and support staff who provide support for on-site customer educational forums such as open enrollment meetings. This past year, the company produced a Spanish video to help new enrollees better understand how their dental plan works; parent company Delta Dental of California also has a Spanish-language section of its web site similar to the one rolled out today by Delta Dental Insurance Company in its 10 states.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that as of the year 2000, 28.1 million people in the United States, or nearly 11 percent of the total population, spoke Spanish in the home -- a number expected to increase as the nation's Latino population grows.

Delta Dental Insurance Company is part of a San Francisco-based holding company system that collectively serves nearly 21 million enrollees in both commercial and government-sponsored programs throughout the nation. It is also part of the Delta Dental Plans Association, whose 39 independent companies cooperate on nationwide programs that today cover more than 45 million of the approximately 155 million Americans with dental benefits.

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CONTACT:
Delta Dental
Elizabeth Risberg, 415-972-8423