Doral Wins Contracts for Statewide Dental Programs in Tennessee and Virginia; Contracts Encompass 1,000,000 Lives as Administrator Renews TennCare; Launches 'Smiles For Children' in Virginia.

MEQUON, Wis. -- Doral Dental USA, the nation's leading multi-state administrator of government dental programs, currently serving more than 7 million members in 17 states, today announced that the company has received contract awards from Tennessee and Virginia for statewide dental programs.

"Doral's vision is to enable government dental programs to efficiently and effectively expand access to high quality dental care," said Doral President Steven J. Pollock. "These state contracts, in conjunction with a number of new managed care subcontracts we are working on, will allow us to help more than a million kids get the dental care they need."

Last week in Tennessee, Doral was selected as the winning bidder for a three-year contract to manage the TennCare dental program. TennCare's dental benefits manager (DBM) is responsible for maintaining an adequate dental provider network, paying provider claims and providing member and outreach services for more than 630,000 children under age 21 enrolled in TennCare. Doral has served as Tennessee's DBM since 2002.

"The selection of Doral to continue administering the TennCare dental program helps to maintain a powerful partnership that is improving the oral health of the people of Tennessee," said Pollock.

"The State's decision was arrived at through an open, fair, and very competitive bidding process. This decision clearly benefits the people of Tennessee because Doral is the most experienced and most capable organization to manage this program. We welcome the opportunity to continue serving the people of Tennessee by building on the progress made during the current contract period."

Virginia Launches 'Smiles For Children'

Doral was also recently selected as the sole administrator for Virginia's new statewide dental program. Launched in July, Smiles For Children is the new dental care program for more than 400,000 Medicaid, FAMIS PLUS and FAMIS (State Children's Health Insurance Program) children. Smiles For Children effectively consolidates pediatric dental services for children previously enrolled in both fee-for-service and Managed Care Organization (MCO) programs through the use of a single Dental Benefits Administrator -- Doral.

"We're very pleased the Commonwealth has chosen Doral as a partner in working to improve the oral health of children in Virginia," said Pollock. "This is our fourth direct contract with state governments for consolidating their dental program, so we feel that Doral is uniquely qualified to effectively and efficiently manage a program of this size, while helping improve access to care for members, streamlining administration to make it easy for dentists to participate and enabling the state to make best use of budgeted dental dollars."

Doral also holds direct contracts with the States of Illinois (1.9 million members) and Kansas (287,000 members) to manage statewide dental programs. In addition to the state contracts, Doral subcontracts with MCOs nationwide to manage their dental programs.

"Our steady growth and success can be attributed to the fact that Doral brings a relentless commitment to improving the oral health of the members we serve," said Pollock. "We have the experienced staff, the systems and the processes in place to assure that government dental programs run as efficiently and effectively as possible. We offer our clients unparalleled expertise and value - a potent combination in today's healthcare environment."

Doral Dental USA is a subsidiary of DentaQuest Ventures. As one of the nation's largest benefits administrators exclusively focused on dental benefits, DentaQuest is uniquely committed to improving the oral health of all our constituents. Through commercial and government programs, DentaQuest now manages dental benefits for more than nine million members throughout the United States.

For more information on Doral Dental, DentaQuest and the effort to improve oral health nationwide, contact Doral at [phone] (x3524).