An Anthem dental line that pays nothing is nearly always saying one thing: the plan does not cover this procedure. As of September 2026, across 459 Anthem lines where the plan paid nothing, 96.1% carried a stated reason, and 61.7% of all those lines — 283 of them, across 11 practices — were refused as not a benefit of the plan. That is the most concentrated denial mix of any carrier measured, against 44.9% at Aetna and 21.1% at Cigna. Anthem paid nothing on 23.6% of 1,941 processed lines across 13 practices and 24 offices. Two things this article deliberately does not do: it does not decode whatever code number is printed on your line, and it does not stand in for a Blue Cross Blue Shield number.
What we measured
| what the Anthem remark says | lines | practices | share of lines that paid nothing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not a covered benefit of the plan | 283 | 11 | 61.7% |
| Adjudicated with no reason given | 46 | 8 | 10.0% |
| Frequency limit — done too recently | 21 | 6 | 4.6% |
Ninety days of Anthem remittance lines to 9 September 2026, dated by when the remittance arrived rather than when the service happened: 459 lines where the payer had finished processing, the plan paid nothing, and none of the charge went to the patient's deductible — a deductible application is the payer charging the deductible, not refusing the procedure. The reason wording is our own categorisation of what Anthem's remark says, grouped so carriers can be compared; it is not a code Anthem transmits. Only three rows are publishable: every other category was backed by fewer than five separate practices, and a cell that thin is left out rather than shown as a small number. That is also why these three add to 76.3% and not to 96.1%. One caution on that 96.1%: it counts what reached the office — the payer's wording and our reading of it together — so it is not a measure of what Anthem meant to send, and a lower figure at another carrier is not proof that carrier said nothing.
Note the second row, because it is a real category and not a gap in the measurement. On 46 lines the remittance recorded the claim as adjudicated and carried no rule behind the outcome. That is different from a blank line — an outcome did arrive — but whether Anthem sent no rule or none survived into what we read cannot be separated here. Either way the office cannot tell whether it is looking at a coverage exclusion, a spent maximum or an interval.
The base here is small — 1,941 processed lines from 13 practices — so read this as narrow evidence about a strong pattern rather than a precise rate. The pattern is what matters: at Anthem, verifying whether the code is a benefit of the specific plan is worth more than every other check combined.
What Anthem's own policy says
Anthem publishes dental clinical policies that name what it will not pay separately, and they read as coverage rules rather than clinical judgements. On local anaesthesia:
"The administration of local anesthetic; be it traditional, electronic or buffered etc. - is considered inclusive of (part of) all dental procedures [unless a specific plan allows coverage] and is not eligible for a separate benefit."
— Anthem Dental Clinical Policy 09-201, Inhalation and Local Anesthesia (2026)
And in the same policy, on nerve blocks:
"Regional and trigeminal block anesthesia may not be a covered service."
— Anthem Dental Clinical Policy 09-201, Inhalation and Local Anesthesia (2026)
Read the two qualifiers: "unless a specific plan allows coverage", and "may not be". Anthem's own policy states its non-coverage rules conditionally, because the plan document settles them. That is the 61.7% row written out in advance — not a carrier refusing a procedure it disapproves of, but a carrier applying a benefit schedule it did not write.
Why "Anthem" and "Blue Cross Blue Shield" are not the same question
Offices searching for a Blue Cross Blue Shield denial code list are usually holding a card from one of dozens of independent Blue plans, each licensing the brand and adjudicating its own dental claims. We have not measured any single Blue Cross Blue Shield dental company across enough separate practices to publish a rate for it, so there is no number here that stands in for one — the Anthem figures above are Anthem's, and generalising them to another Blue plan would be inventing evidence. Where a number matters, get it from the plan in front of you.
The same caution applies inside Anthem. A refusal for "not a covered benefit" is a statement about one employer group's purchase, and the 61.7% is the share of Anthem lines that paid nothing for that stated reason in the practices measured — not the probability that a given Anthem plan excludes a given code.
What to do about the code itself
Nothing measured here decodes a code number on an Anthem line, and this article does not guess at one. Two rules follow, and they are the whole of what can honestly be said:
- Do not match an Anthem marker to the national code list by shape. A three-digit number on an Anthem line is not necessarily a Claim Adjustment Reason Code with the same digits, and the national list will hand you a plausible, wrong answer. The site's guide to why a denial code is in no code list covers how to tell the two apart in a few seconds.
- Read the sentence beside the marker. On 96.1% of these lines there is one, and it is the only field that names the rule.
What to do
- Verify coverage of the exact code against the group's plan document before treating. At Anthem that single check sits in front of 61.7% of everything that pays nothing.
- When the line says the claim was adjudicated with no reason given, call rather than appeal. There is nothing to argue against yet, and the answer decides whether this is a plan exclusion or a history question.
- Tell the patient before treatment when a code is not a benefit. A non-covered procedure is generally the patient's to pay, and their share depends on the participation agreement — check it before quoting.
- Keep your own legend: the code as printed, and the sentence you were told beside it. A code you cannot look up is decodable only from the record you build yourself.
Numbers last refreshed September 2026.