Listen up! If you currently work for a dental mill in any capacity this is a must read for you. If you work for a “chain” dental clinic, it’s for you too. It lays it all out for the “fake” owners and exactly what can and may happen if you continue to cooperate filling the coffers of Private Equity firms, like Arcapita and FFL.
Excerpt:
…Children are strapped down to a papoose board to eliminate the time it takes to calm and reassure them before a procedure. Parents are banned from the clinic rooms because they might want to slow the procedure if their child is fearful or in obvious discomfort.
Unnecessary procedures are performed because the corporation gets paid by Medicaid for every procedure performed, not just the necessary ones. And children get rushed, inadequate, and botched dental work because it’s faster than taking the time to do each procedure properly.As the blurred face of the stricken ex-Small Smiles dental assistant explains, it’s all about “production, production, production.” It’s a good mantra for a widget factory. It’s a torture sentence in a dental clinic.
How are such practices permitted in this day and age? The simple answer is they aren’t –and haven’t been for over a hundred years. Unfortunately, the laws that prevent such practices aren’t systematically enforced, and private equity firms with desires for outsized profits are taking advantage of that fact. They’ve discovered a veritable gold mine in the systematic bilking of Medicaid for their corrupted brand of dental “care”. By inflating the profit margins of these clinics with shoddy and abusive practices, private equity firms can sell the business at an extraordinary profit, with the only fallout being traumatized children who are often too poor to seek recourse – or know that any is due to them…