District of Columbia prompt pay law dental

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District of Columbia's prompt-pay chapter (D.C. Code §31-3132; §31-3131; §31-3138) does not reach standalone dental insurance at all — Standalone dental is expressly excluded — though not for the reason it first appears. D.C. Code §31-3131(4) removes "dental only or vision only insurance" from the definition of health benefit plan. It is not the insurer definition that excludes a dental carrier: §31-3131(5) defines "health insurer" broadly — any person that provides health benefit plans OR INSURANCE in the District — so a dental-only carrier plausibly is a health insurer. The exclusion comes from the object of the duty and from applicability: §31-3132(a) obliges reimbursement only "under the health benefits plan," and §31-3138(a) applies the chapter only to individual and group health benefits plans issued or renewed in the District. Dental benefits embedded in a comprehensive medical plan or HMO contract do get the chapter's protections, because that plan is a health benefits plan. What this record establishes is that Chapter 31A does not reach stand-alone dental — not that no District authority does; no exhaustive search of the rest of the D.C. Code or DCMR Title 26-A was performed. Where the chapter does apply (dental inside a comprehensive medical plan), the deadline is 30 days (uniform). A self-funded private-employer (ERISA) dental plan is generally beyond a state prompt-pay statute's reach: 29 U.S.C. § 1144(b)(2)(B) bars a state from deeming such a plan an insurer, and the courts have read that to keep state insurance regulation off it. The statute itself never uses the words self-funded or prompt pay, and the rule is not categorical — a self-funded governmental or church plan is not an ERISA plan at all, so state law can reach it; § 1144(b)(6) leaves multiple employer welfare arrangements open to state insurance law; and nothing in § 1144 addresses state enforcement against the third-party administrator or the network contract. Where the plan is a self-funded ERISA group health plan, the federal claims-procedure deadlines apply instead: a post-service benefit determination within 30 days (one 15-day extension), at least 180 days to appeal, and an appeal decision within 60 days (or two 30-day levels), under 29 CFR 2560.503-1.