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

Dental scope unsettled · Last verified 2026-08-30

New Hampshire prompt-pay law for dental claims

New Hampshire'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.

N.H. RSA 415:6-h; 415:18-k; 420-J:8-a

Read the statute text

Payment deadlines

Electronic claims: 15 calendar days (clean electronic claim)
Paper claims: 30 calendar days (clean non-electronic claim)

Three parallel sections carry identical language: RSA 415:6-h for individual accident or health policies, RSA 415:18-k for group policies, and RSA 420-J:8-a for health carriers issuing health benefit plans. Each requires payment "for services rendered by New Hampshire health care providers within 30 calendar days upon receipt of a clean non-electronic claim or 15 calendar days upon receipt of a clean electronic claim." A denied or pended claim needs a notice within those same 15 or 30 days, and the insurer then has 45 calendar days to adjudicate after receiving the requested information; miss the notice and the claim becomes clean. Payment is the date the check is issued or the funds transferred, with checks mailed within five business days.

Interest and penalties

An overdue claim carries "an interest payment of 1.5 percent per month beginning from the date the payment was due" under each of the three sections. The statute states a monthly rate only — an annual figure is arithmetic. Interest runs to the health care provider or the insured person, and attorney's fees are available only on a judicial finding of bad faith. Commissioner fines for a pattern of overdue payments are capped at $300,000 per calendar year examined.

Does it apply to dental? Dental scope unsettled

The two chapter-415 sections reach "any individual policy of accident or health insurance providing benefits for medical or hospital expenses" and the group equivalent — neither mentions dental, and whether a stand-alone dental policy provides benefits for medical or hospital expenses is an inference the statute does not make. The safer route for a dental office is the managed-care chapter: RSA 420-J:2 applies chapter 420-J to all health carriers offering a managed care plan in the state, its "health care services" definition is broad ("diagnosis, prevention, treatment, cure or relief of a health condition, illness, injury or disease"), and its health benefit plan definition contains no dental carve-out. Dental practices are covered as health care providers under that language; the stand-alone-dental-policy question stays open.

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 New Hampshire rule (N.H. RSA 415:6-h; 415:18-k; 420-J:8-a). Estimate only — the statute's own accrual triggers control.

How the claim was submitted

New Hampshire sets a different deadline for each, so this decides which day the field below counts from.

Electronic— 15 calendar days (clean electronic claim)Paper— 30 calendar days (clean non-electronic claim)

Claim amount (allowed)Interest statutes run on the payable claim amount, not billed charges.Days past the deadlineDays after the statutory deadline for a electronic claim (15 calendar days (clean electronic claim)), not days since submission.

Estimated interest

$19.13

1.5%/mo (monthly tiers, prorated by days)

1.5% per month from the date payment was due. Interest is owed to the health care provider or the insured person; attorney's fees require a judicial finding of bad faith.

How we calculate this

Formula: claim × monthly tier rate × days in tier ÷ 30, summed across tiers, using simple (not compounded) interest as the statute states it. The rate and deadline come from N.H. RSA 415:6-h; 415:18-k; 420-J:8-a, 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.

Nothing you type here leaves your browser — the results are computed locally on this page.

Also in the statute

No insurer is in violation for a claim submitted more than 90 days after the service was rendered — the deadlines effectively assume filing inside 90 days.
The sections do not apply to capitation or periodic payments, and a missed deadline never creates coverage for a non-covered claim.
Other exceptions: a court or agency directive, liquidation or rehabilitation, impossibility, a reported fraud investigation, and a pending internal or external review.
Last amendments are 2009 for RSA 415:6-h and 420-J:8-a and 2010 for RSA 415:18-k — the 2014 amendment sometimes cited belongs to the adjacent formulary section.

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)