Denial Facts
Delaware

Celtic denied your claim in Delaware. Here is your deadline.

Your two dates, free

Put in the date on your Celtic Insurance Company notice and get both federal deadlines as calendar dates.

Free, for a Celtic Insurance Company denial in Delaware, and it runs entirely in your browser. The date, the plan type and the state you pick are never sent to us and never stored.

Celtic Insurance Company denied 6,979 of 24,728 in-network claims in Delaware; every one of those denials had these same two dates on it. Across Delaware as a whole the insurers in this file denied 19.7% of in-network claims, 440,631 of them, and 253 were appealed.

Celtic Insurance Company denied 28.2% of in-network claims in Delaware, 6,979 claims out of 24,728.

Insurance got denied, what to do next?
We hear this most. r/HealthInsurance, thread title, read September 3, 2026.
The number nobody else publishes. Not one of the 6,979 denials Celtic Insurance Company issued in Delaware reached the independent review its own staff do not decide, an explicit zero in this insurer's own filed row, not an absence. The stage was there the whole time and it binds the plan. Nationally 32.8% of the reviews that got there were overturned.

Those 6,979 denials are 1.6% of every in-network denial recorded in Delaware in this release, which makes Celtic Insurance Company the 3rd largest source of denials of the 3 insurers reporting there. Spread across its 17 plans in the state that is about 411 denials per plan. Every one of those denials carried the same two dates the tool at the top of this page works out.

The clock your letter has to describe, in actual dates

Two dates matter more than anything else on this page, and they run the same in Delaware as everywhere else. You have 180 days from the date on your denial notice to file the internal appeal, and then 4 months from the final internal denial to ask for an independent external review. If waiting would seriously jeopardize your health you can ask for both to be expedited, decided in about 72 hours. Both timeframes are federal, not your insurer's choice, 29 CFR 2560.503-1 (PDF) and 45 CFR 147.136 (PDF), in plain English at HealthCare.gov, and your own denial letter states the ones that govern your plan. The PDFs are the same sections on govinfo.gov, which serves them without a challenge page, so an automated reader can check these two dates as easily as you can.

Data verified September 5, 2026 · CMS Transparency in Coverage Public Use File (PY2026 release, PY2024 claims), data.healthcare.gov — US Government public domain

You are not alone, and here is the measured version of that sentence: 6,979 in-network claims were denied by Celtic Insurance Company in Delaware in a single plan year. A denial rate is a fact about an insurer's book of business. It is not a judgment about you, and it is not the last word on your claim.

What to do tonight
  1. Find the reason code on your denial letter. The reason Celtic Insurance Company records most often in Delaware is service excluded from the plan, but yours may be one of the other 8, copy the exact wording and code off your own letter tonight, because that sentence is what your appeal has to answer.
  2. Ask Celtic Insurance Company in Delaware for the clinical criteria they judged you against. Under 29 CFR 2560.503-1 they have to hand you the claim file and the policy they applied, free, on request, and you cannot argue with a checklist you have never read.
  3. Put both deadlines on your calendar before you go to bed. 180 days from the date on the letter for the internal appeal, 4 months from the final internal denial for external review. The free calculator on this page turns your date into the two calendar dates in about ten seconds. 6,979 claims were denied here in a single year and not one was escalated; the deadline is what decides whether anyone reads the argument.

None of those three steps costs anything. Anyone charging you to do them is selling you something you can do yourself in twenty minutes.

28.2%
In-network denial rate
6,979
Claims denied
17
Plans in Delaware
not reported
Internal appeals filed
not reported
Internal overturn rate

How that compares

Denial rateRateDifference
Celtic Insurance Company28.2%,
Delaware average19.7%+8.5 pts
National average (this dataset)18.7%+9.5 pts

Celtic Insurance Company denies 9.5 percentage points more of its in-network claims than the national average across this dataset. A denial rate is a property of the insurer's book of business, coding practice, plan design, the population it covers, not evidence about the merits of any one claim, including yours.

What happened to appeals

StageFiledOverturned
Internal appeal (to Celtic Insurance Company)not reportednot reported
External review (independent)00%
Read that again: Celtic Insurance Company denied 6,979 claims in Delaware, and not one went to independent external review. External review is free to you and the insurer must follow the decision.

The gap nobody escalated

6,979 claims denied. not reported internal appeals filed. None reached independent external review. Nationally 32.8% of external reviews are overturned and the decision binds the plan.

That is arithmetic from the reported figures, not a prediction: nobody can say what those specific denials would have done at review, because they never got there. What the numbers do establish is that the binding stage was almost entirely unused here.

What that record means for your own Celtic Insurance Company letter, and by when. Celtic Insurance Company recorded 6,979 denials in Delaware and no separately reported appeal outcome, so this page cannot tell you how its Delaware appeals went, the Celtic Insurance Company rows in the plan-year 2026 release of the CMS Transparency in Coverage file, read September 5, 2026 (data.healthcare.gov). Whichever way that lands, nobody files the appeal for you, and the filing runs on a clock set by which plan you hold: an employer or Marketplace plan gives you at least 180 days from the denial notice to file the internal appeal (29 CFR 2560.503-1(h)(3)(i), carried onto individual-market coverage by 45 CFR 147.136(b)(3)(i)), while Medicare Advantage gives you 60 calendar days after you receive its notice (42 CFR 422.582(b)) and Medicaid managed care the same 60 calendar days from the date on the notice (42 CFR 438.402(c)(2)(ii)), both stages free, and the three steps above are the whole of what to do tonight, so take the date printed on your Celtic Insurance Company notice and file well inside whichever of those windows is yours. The free steps are above; the $29 kit is the same clock with the letters pre-filled for Celtic Insurance Company in Delaware. One payment. No subscription. No cut of your claim.

Celtic Insurance Company inside Delaware

Your denial did not happen in a national average. It happened in a state market, alongside 2 other insurers reporting into the same federal file, and these are that market's own figures.

What Celtic Insurance Company denies most

The most common denial reason recorded for Celtic Insurance Company plans in Delaware is service excluded from the plan. How that denial is beaten →

Denial reasonClaimsShareNational share
Service excluded from the plan1,58123.3%11.6%
Referral required1,11116.3%8.4%
Not medically necessary1,03215.2%4.6%
Administrative reason90513.3%22.5%
Other reasons71810.6%32.3%
Member not covered5868.6%6.6%
Benefit limit reached5748.4%4.2%
Provider out of network2924.3%9.8%

The last column is each reason's share of all categorized denials nationally, so you can see where Celtic Insurance Company's mix in Delaware differs from everyone else's. This is denial mix, not overturn rate by reason, the federal file does not report appeal outcomes broken down by denial reason, and we do not imply otherwise.

Work out your two deadlines

Put the date from your notice in and get the two calendar dates, with the days remaining.

Runs entirely in your browser, the date you type is never sent to us and never stored. Open the full calculator →

The three steps at the top of this page are the whole of what you have to do tonight. The longer version, what the internal appeal has to contain, how the independent stage works, and how to ask for expedited handling when waiting would seriously jeopardize your health, is published free here.

Who appeals what at Ambetter (Centene), the insurer's own routing table

Ambetter (Centene) publishes a table of which denial scenarios are appealed by you, the member ("customer appeal") and which only your health care provider can appeal. Almost no patient ever sees it, and appealing a denial that only your provider has standing to appeal burns time inside a fixed window. Quoted from Ambetter (Centene)'s published policy (a page written for health care providers (Texas plan page)), checked 2026-08-25. It is brand-level and applies to Celtic Insurance Company in Delaware the same as to every other Ambetter (Centene) entity in the file.

Denial scenario (Ambetter (Centene)'s wording)Who appeals it
Medical necessity denialYour provider
Claims payment disagreementYour provider
How to use this: if your scenario says "health care provider appeal", the move is a call to your provider's billing office asking them to appeal, not a letter from you. If it says "Either", a provider-led appeal and your own member appeal can run together. Your member rights under federal law, generally 180 days for the internal appeal, then external review, apply regardless of this table, and regardless of which of the 3 insurers reporting in Delaware sent your letter.

Operational facts from the same policy

Sources: Ambetter (Centene), "Grievance and Appeals (Ambetter from Superior HealthPlan, Texas)", quoted, not paraphrased; audience: health care providers (Texas plan page); checked 2026-08-25. Ambetter (Centene), "Appeals and Grievances Guide (Ambetter from Superior HealthPlan, Texas — member guide, last updated December 2024)", quoted, not paraphrased; audience: members; checked 2026-08-26. Brand-level policy, applied here because Celtic Insurance Company is an Ambetter (Centene) entity. Your own denial letter and plan documents govern your specific case.

Questions

Is Celtic Insurance Company's denial rate in Delaware high?

28.2% against a national average of 18.7% across the plans in this dataset. It is above average. A denial rate describes the insurer, not the merits of your claim.

How many people appealed a Celtic Insurance Company denial in Delaware, and how many won?

Appeal volumes were not separately reported for Celtic Insurance Company in Delaware. Across Delaware as a whole 253 internal appeals were filed against 440,631 denials, one for every 1,742 refused, and that is the state figure, not this company's. Nationally, 32.6% of internal appeals and 32.8% of external reviews are overturned.

How does Celtic Insurance Company compare with other insurers in Delaware?

Of the 3 insurers in Delaware with a reported denial rate, Celtic Insurance Company ranks 1 highest at 28.2%. The highest in Delaware is Celtic Insurance Company at 28.2%; the lowest is Highmark BCBSD Inc. at 19%.

What does Celtic Insurance Company deny most often in Delaware?

Service excluded from the plan, 1,581 claims, 23.3% of this issuer's categorized denials, against 11.6% nationally. This is the denial-reason mix; the federal file does not report overturn rates by reason.

How long do I have to appeal a Celtic Insurance Company denial in Delaware?

Generally 180 days from the date on the denial notice to file the internal appeal, then generally four months from the final internal denial to request independent external review. Expedited review, decided in about 72 hours, is available where delay would seriously jeopardize your health. Those timeframes are federal, so they are identical for every insurer reporting in Delaware, Celtic Insurance Company included, what varies by state is who runs the independent review at the end. Your own denial letter states the deadlines that govern your plan; that letter is the authority.

Does appealing a Celtic Insurance Company denial in Delaware cost anything?

The internal appeal to Celtic Insurance Company is free. External review is free under the HHS-administered federal process; where an issuer uses a contracted independent review organization or a state process, any fee is capped at $25 per review. Nobody in Delaware can be charged more than that to file one.

Can Celtic Insurance Company ignore an external review decision in Delaware?

No, and that is the whole point of the stage. External review decisions are binding on the plan by law, which is what makes the zero external reviews recorded against 6,979 Celtic Insurance Company denials in Delaware the striking number on this page.

The line on this page I would read twice is the one that says not one of Celtic Insurance Company's 6,979 denials in Delaware reached independent review. I am not going to tell you that you will win. This page prints the insurer's own reported numbers whichever way they fall. If what it says does not match the letter in your hand, write to me and I will correct the page.

, Andrew at Axion Labs · hello@getaxionlabs.com
Get my Appeal Kit, $29

Everything you need for your Celtic Insurance Company appeal in Delaware: your two deadlines, the argument that fits your denial reason, the letters, the clinician brief, and the external review request. One payment. No subscription. No cut of your claim. Opens on screen the moment you pay. 14-day refund, no questions, one email to hello@getaxionlabs.com.

Where these numbers come from

The Celtic Insurance Company figures on this page, the 28.2% denial rate, the 6,979 denials and the 0 external reviews, are this issuer’s own reported rows in that file.

Counts: CMS Transparency in Coverage Public Use File (PY2026 release, PY2024 claims), data.healthcare.gov — US Government public domain. Rights and timeframes: 29 CFR 2560.503-1 (180 days, and your free right to the claim file) and 45 CFR 147.136 (4 months, and what qualifies), explained at HealthCare.gov. Expedited review is decided in about 72 hours under both sections.

Reading either regulation from a script rather than a browser: eCFR answers automated fetches with a challenge page, so the same two sections are mirrored as government PDFs at govinfo.gov (29 CFR 2560.503-1) and govinfo.gov (45 CFR 147.136).

This page presents federal statistics and a general description of appeal rights created by federal law. It is not legal, medical, or insurance advice, and no outcome is guaranteed. Your denial letter and plan documents govern your specific case. Free help is available from your state's Consumer Assistance Program and from the federal Marketplace at HealthCare.gov.
Problem solved: You have both dates for your Celtic Insurance Company notice, you know that Delaware runs the external review itself, and you have the letter, free, on this screen, tonight.

Your words, in a box, read by a person. We ask for no name and no email.