Request

How many Dental claims have been rejected under the 2 month rule since 2006 What is the total number of UDA’s of these claims What is the total amount of patient charges of these claims deducted from payments to dentists

From 01/04/2006 to present in England

Response

A copy of the information is attached.

Please note that we only hold data for the previous 7 years in line with our data retention schedule and so we have provided data for 2016/17 to 2022/2023.

This report contains the details from FP17s processed for the years stated for contracts in England, broken down by treatment charge band, where the FP17 and subsequent UDAs were disallowed due to late submission. These FP17s were identified using the comment code 049, which is “UDA has been disallowed due to the claim being received more than 2 months after date of completion”.

The information within the report includes the data items and descriptions listed below.

The data for each reporting year is based on year-end methodology. Year-end methodology will include all activity data (including amendments) collected from FP17s scheduled in any of the fifteen schedule months from April to June, where the date of completion is on or between 1 April and 31 March of the year. For example 2022-23 will include all activity data (including amendments) collected from FP17s scheduled in any of the fifteen schedule months from April 2022 to June 2023, where the date of completion is on or between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023. Where FP17s do not have a date of completion, e.g. where the patient has failed to return to complete the treatment, the date of last visit is used.

Treatment Charge Band: The patient charge band associated with a course of treatment as stated in Part 5 Treatment Category of the FP17. For the purposes of this FOI, this is restricted to Banded courses of treatment, those being Band 1, Band 2, Band 3 or Band 1 Urgent.

Late Submitted FP17s: This is a count of the number of late submitted FP17s. Late is defined as FP17s where the treatment was completed and the time between receipt at NHS Dental Services and date of completion of treatment was greater than two months (62 days).

Disallowed UDA: The units of dental activity scheduled which would be awarded if these FP17s were not submitted late.

Patient Charge Calculated: The amount of patient charges calculated as recoverable from the contract payment based on the activity scheduled and patient charges recorded on the FP17. The total patient charge calculated includes any patient charge calculated on withdrawn FP17s. Amendments/deletions of FP17s can result in refunds of patient charges to contracts.

Please note that this request and our response is published on our Freedom of Information disclosure log at:

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01364