As an Aetna dental plan holder, I wanted to find out if a certain dental procedure would be covered and how much of my procedure would be paid. It made the most sense to just call and ask a client, but the system sure made it hard to do so. I found this number online and it led me to the corporate offices, but then it kept circling back around. It didn't take long for me to be confused about whether they could help me or not, but I stuck with it and eventually, I got to an associate.
From what I could gather, this was supposed to be a corporate call line, but they were able to reroute me to an actual customer service agent even though it said several times that they couldn't. My guess is that this line is meant to deal with corporate issues, but it's also able to reroute calls despite advising otherwise. While that part was confusing, Aetna probably has a high call volume on a daily basis dealing with contract issues, medical providers, billing, etc so it makes sense they would try to offload customers to a dedicated line without a separate switchboard when they can.
When I first called this number, an automated assistant stated, "Thank you for calling Aetna’s corporate headquarters. If you are a healthcare professional, press or say 1. In order to get you to the area to best meet your needs, please listen to and choose from the following three options. If you know the name or number of the person you are trying to call, press 1. If you are currently an Aetna Medical or dental member, please press 2. All other callers, please press 3."
I needed help with my dental plan, so I chose option 2 and then it said, "If you are a member needing assistance with your plan, please hang up and call the number on your member’s service plan. Please note, if you are calling about a medical or dental plan the corporate line will not help you." This is where it got confusing because immediately after saying that, it asked me if I was calling about my medical plan or my dental plan. I went ahead and said dental and it asked for my birthday and my ID number.
At this point, I wasn't sure if it was going to work or not due to the disclaimer, but it routed me to a customer service agent who helped me with my plan. I did have to wait about ten minutes, but it worked out i the end. However, I probably would just call from the number on my card next time to save myself the extra trouble.