If you've been running a dental practice for any length of time, you know the rhythm of insurance payments. A check shows up, someone logs it, it gets deposited, and your front desk matches it to the EOB. It's not glamorous, but it works. There's a physical thing you can hold, track, and point to.
That routine is going away. Delta Dental is moving toward paperless payments across many states, with EFT set to become the standard payment method starting January 1, 2027. For practices that don't take action before then, the carrier will automatically transition them to a new payment method and the default they've chosen isn't the one most dentists would pick if they were paying attention.
What Replaces the Paper Check
When Delta Dental eliminates checks in your state, you'll have two electronic options: Virtual Credit Cards (VCCs) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). They both get money from Delta Dental to your practice, but that's about where the similarities end.
The default, if you don't opt out, is the Virtual Credit Card.
The Problem With Virtual Credit Cards
A VCC is essentially a single-use digital card number that Delta Dental sends to your practice by email or through their online portal. It sounds convenient — no waiting for the mail, payments show up faster. But here's the part that should give you pause.
Virtual Credit Cards run through the card networks, which means your practice absorbs a merchant processing fee to collect your own insurance reimbursementThe actual underlying cost of these transactions is under 3%; however, depending on a practice's processing plan, the fees they're absorbing can run anywhere from 3% to 6%. On top of that, Delta has already applied your contracted discount to the claim and as a result, you're also paying a processing fee on money that's already been reduced. For a practice with significant Delta Dental volume, that adds up to a real number every year, and its money you're essentially handing back for no reason.
There's also a security angle worth thinking about. A card number delivered to an email inbox is only as secure as the controls around that inbox. If someone on your team has access to that email and weak oversight exists around how VCC payments get processed, you've created an opening for misdirection. Unlike a check made out to your practice or a direct bank deposit, a VCC number can potentially be captured and used before it ever reaches your account. It's one more variable to manage, and most practices don't realize it's there until something goes wrong.
Why EFT Is the Right Call — and What You Need to Do It Well
Electronic Funds Transfer is exactly what it sounds like: Delta Dental deposits the payment directly into your bank account. No card network, no processing fees, no middleman. The full amount lands where it belongs.
For most practices, EFT is the clear choice. But it does require you to think differently about reconciliation. With a paper check, your team had something tangible to work with — a physical document that traveled through your office alongside the EOB. With EFT, money appears in your account and it's on you to connect the dots.
That's not a reason to avoid EFT. It's a reason to be intentional about how you set it up.
The first move is the most important: contact Delta Dental now, enroll in EFT, and explicitly opt out of Virtual Credit Cards. Get confirmation of your election in writing. Don’t assume silence means you’re opted out as the default choice will cost you every time you use it.
From there, think about how your bank accounts are structured. The cleanest setup is a dedicated account that exists solely for insurance EFT deposits, completely separate from your operating account. When Delta payments land, they go there and are not commingled with everything else. That separation alone makes your financial picture dramatically cleaner.
Once the money is flowing into the right place, build a reconciliation habit around it. Whether you’re doing it daily or weekly, the discipline is matching every incoming deposit to its corresponding EOB while confirming the amount, the patient, and the claim all line up. Problems caught weekly are inconveniences. Problems caught six months later are headaches.
Finally, think carefully about who has access to what. Whoever handles reconciliation needs visibility into the dedicated account, but not the ability to move funds. Read-only access is the right structure as it protects your team as much as it protects the practice.
Don't Wait on This
The January 2027 deadline will arrive whether you’re ready or not — the question is whether you’ve made a deliberate choice before it does.
Use the time between now and the transition to get your internal processes dialed in: the dedicated account, the reconciliation routine, and the access structure before the change hits. The practices that will feel this transition least are the ones that made a proactive choice early.
The move away from paper checks isn't necessarily bad for your practice. Digital payments, when structured correctly, are efficient and reliable. But "structured correctly" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The practices that will feel this transition least are the ones that made a proactive choice and built the right systems around it. The ones that will feel it most are the ones that did nothing and got defaulted into a payment method that costs them every time they use it.
If you want to talk through how insurance payment processing fits into your broader payment strategy, we're happy to help. That's exactly what Dental Card Services does by helping independent dental practices understand where their money is going and make sure less of it disappears along the way.
Dental Card Services Alliance helps dentists and dental practices navigate payment processing, reduce costs, and protect their practice revenue. Contact us for a free analysis.
