HADLEY — At Hampshire Meadow Family & Pediatric Dentistry, which specializes in offering dental care for those under the age of 2, the practice’s viability depends on timely reimbursements for pediatric patients on MassHealth insurance.
Since mid-March, though, when processing of MassHealth claims switched from DentaQuest to BeneCare Dental Insurance, no payments for these pediatric patients have been paid or processed, prompting Dr. Cyrus Safizadeh, who runs Hampshire Meadow with wife Dr. Noelle Nubani, to raise concerns with state officials about what is becoming devastating for the practice.
“Unfortunately, our business cannot survive that long with zero payment, so … we will likely stop taking MassHealth patients, and have to delay all their treatment unless it is emergency/urgent situation,” Safizadeh wrote in an email.
On Monday, posted on the entrance to the practice at 207 Russell St. is a message reading, “As of May 1st, 2025, we are temporarily suspending all MassHealth appointments.” The message elaborates on the reason: “Our clinic, which is one of the largest pediatric MassHealth providers in the area, simply has reached a point where we cannot afford to continue seeing patients without timely reimbursement.”
The decision to alert patients to this change, and pausing many treatments, follows a letter sent last weekend to Gov. Maura Healey, U.S. Congressman James McGovern and state Rep. Homar Gomez, D-Easthampton.
Initiated by Safizadeh and signed by a few other pediatric dentists in the region, including those at Pioneer Valley Pediatric Dentistry in Greenfield and Children’s Dentistry of Chicopee, the letter references the $4 million construction Hampshire Meadow is undertaking, at the corner of Route 9 and East Street, that will almost double the size of the practice from the current 15 staff members, dental assistants and hygienists.
“This current fiasco with BeneCare attempting to be the third party administrator is now jeopardizing the existence of our current practice and future practice,” Safizadeh wrote. “There is only so long we can see MassHealth pediatric patients without any sort of reimbursement, and it has already been six weeks of this.”
Stacey Nee, director of communications for MassHealth, issued a statement on behalf of the agency, calling the issues with the third party vendor “unacceptable.”
“MassHealth is committed to ensuring members’ access to dental services and paying dental providers in a timely manner,” the statement reads. “These issues with the new dental vendor’s processing and payment system are entirely unacceptable. We have demanded that they fix this as soon as possible, and we are working closely with them to make sure it happens.”
“MassHealth is connecting directly with dental providers to offer interim support as needed,” the statement concludes.
Gomez, whose district includes Hadley, attended the March groundbreaking for the new building for Hampshire Meadow.
There, Safizadeh explained that because the practice takes Medicaid, or MassHealth, even as others have stopped accepting it, or don’t have dentists who can handle severe cases of decay in children as young as a year old, daily referrals come from local pediatricians, nurse practitioners, community health centers, and other dental offices.
“So we see daily referrals as far as Berkshire County, Franklin County, Hampden, so it has really kind of overflowed our practice, which is fine,” Safizadeh said at the groundbreaking.
Gomez said that Medicaid is a vital service to low-income families. “It’s really important to help the people that don’t make a lot of money, their children, their kids,” Gomez said at the groundbreaking. “With a better dental health, they will have a better health in life.”
Gomez did not immediately respond to an email to his office for this story.
Another who signed the letter is Supreeth Veeranna, a pediatric dentist at Children’s Dentistry of Chicopee. Veeranna is hopeful the matter will be resolved soon, and the practice will continue to see MassHealth pediatric patients in the meantime.
“We are not planning to stop accepting new patients or treat patients,” Veeranna said. “As of now, we will continue to provide dental care to them.”
Safizadeh suggested legal action may be needed to rectify the situation if legislators and others don’t act.
“We were told there would be no delay in claims being paid or processed,” Safizadeh wrote. “Well it is now six weeks later and there hasn’t been a single claim paid or processed and we are being told it could be weeks until that happens.”
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
