What is the Alaska prompt-pay deadline for dental claims, and what interest applies to late payment?

Under Alaska Stat. §21.36.495, the Alaska payment deadline is 30 calendar days (no format split). Interest accrues at 15 percent annually beginning the day after the deficiency notice was due and continues until the claim is paid (§21.36.495(c)). Dental applicability: Genuinely unsettled, and the common summary is wrong. A self-funded private-employer (ERISA) plan is generally beyond this statute's reach and runs on the federal claims-procedure clock instead — but that comes from the courts reading 29 U.S.C. § 1144, not from its text, and it is not categorical: a self-funded governmental or church plan is not an ERISA plan at all, § 1144(b)(6) leaves multiple employer welfare arrangements open to state insurance law, and nothing in § 1144 bars a state from reaching the third-party administrator or the network contract.

Dental scope unsettled · Last verified 2026-08-30

Alaska prompt-pay law for dental claims

Alaska's prompt-pay statute never names dental, and its definitions do not settle whether it reaches a stand-alone dental carrier. The deadlines are below.

Alaska Stat. §21.36.495

Read the statute text

Payment deadlines

Electronic claims: 30 calendar days (no format split)
Paper claims: 30 calendar days (no format split)

A health care insurer must pay or deny within 30 calendar days after it — or a third-party administrator under contract with it — receives a clean claim, whether or not the treating provider participates. The statute draws no electronic-versus-paper distinction. If the insurer sends a timely deficiency notice, it must pay within 15 calendar days after receiving the requested information or 30 days after receiving the claim. Miss the deficiency notice and the claim is presumed clean. A claim counts as paid on the day payment is mailed or transmitted electronically, not the day it arrives.

Interest and penalties

Interest accrues at 15 percent annually beginning the day after the deficiency notice was due and continues until the claim is paid (§21.36.495(c)). The insurer owes nothing when the interest works out to $1 or less (subsection (h)), interest accrues only on the covered portion of a partially covered claim (subsection (e)), and accrued interest may not be charged against the policy's benefit limits (subsection (g)). The statute never uses the word "automatic" — it simply imposes the duty without requiring a request.

Does it apply to dental? Dental scope unsettled

Genuinely unsettled, and the common summary is wrong. The excepted-benefits carve-out that supposedly removes stand-alone dental attaches to the defined term "health care insurance plan" (AS 21.54.500(15)) — a term §21.36.495 never uses. The section applies to a "health care insurer" paying indemnities under a health care insurance policy, and that definition (AS 21.54.500(16)) contains no excepted-benefits exclusion. Cutting the other way, AS 21.12.050(a)(5) defines health insurance to include insurance for dental care. Treat the reach of the section over a dental-only carrier as an open question for the Division of Insurance, not as settled law in either direction.

Self-funded (ERISA) plans: 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.

Because this statute never names dental, whether it reaches your claim is unresolved. Treat anything below as the figure the statute would produce if it applies — read the applicability note above first.

Estimate the late-payment interest

Uses the verified Alaska rule (Alaska Stat. §21.36.495). Estimate only — the statute's own accrual triggers control.

Claim amount (allowed)Interest statutes run on the payable claim amount, not billed charges.Days past the deadlineDays after the statutory deadline for this claim (30 calendar days (no format split)), not days since submission.

Estimated interest

$15.72

15% per year (simple)

Interest accrues by operation of law from the day after the notice was due; the statute imposes no requirement that the provider ask for it. Nothing is owed when the interest comes to $1 or less, and accrual runs only on the covered portion of a partially covered claim.

How we calculate this

Formula: claim × 15% × days late ÷ 365, using simple (not compounded) interest as the statute states it. The rate and deadline come from Alaska Stat. §21.36.495, read against the statute text linked in the sources on this page (last verified 2026-08-30). Accrual start dates, clean-claim status, safe harbors, and plan funding all affect the real figure — treat this as an estimate for the payer conversation, not a demandable amount.

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Also in the statute

A clean claim is one with no defect, impropriety, missing substantiating documentation, or circumstance requiring special treatment that prevents timely payment (§21.36.495(i)(1)).
The deficiency notice goes to the covered person, and to the provider only where the claim was assigned or direct payment was elected — so a dental office may never see it on an unassigned claim.
Receipt by a contracted third-party administrator starts the 30-day clock, but the payment duty stays on the insurer.

Payment deadlines

Interest and penalties

Does it apply to dental? Dental scope unsettled

Estimate the late-payment interest

Also in the statute

Sources (statute text)