When patients or members of the dental office staff contact a payer to determine whether a benefit is available under a specific plan, they are usually given a yes/no response. Specific payment guidelines may not be provided. If these were provided, the process would be much more transparent and many of these situations could be avoided. Until this is common practice, the carrier should make it clear to both patients and dentists that while SRP may be necessary, their plan will only provide a benefit when the plan's particular clinical indicators are present. If third-party payers disclosed the actual payment parameters, dentists could then tell the patient in advance what the plan might cover.