Texas State Board of Dental Examiners General Counsel Admitted–“If you own a clinic you are practicing dentistry in the state”

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Texas State Board of Dental Examiners General Counsel Admitted–“If you own a clinic you are practicing dentistry in the state”

There is such a HUGE GI-NORMOUS difference in the way North Carolina’s Dental Board understands the responsibilities given to them and the way the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners understand theirs. It’s truly mind blogging, yes I mean “blogging”.

North Carolina’s dental board hopped all over one dentist trying to skirt the laws and has now taken it to the legislature to make sure the laws against corporations coming between the dentist and the patient are clear.

After 5 years of work and 3 years of jumping through hoops, some Texas citizens finally got a hearing with the state legislature. Three years, now! Three years! Expect at least another 3 or more to clean up the damn mess down there. One good thing, Sherri Meeks, the former Executive Director, resigned just days “We do regulate dentistry. If you own a clinic you are practicing dentistry in the state."- Joy Sparks, TSBDE General Counsel before the hearing, and on more than one occasion it was highly suggested to the board that they now have the opportunity to hire someone who can and will do the job they are paid to do. I guess Texans will just have to wait and see.

At the hearing held on Wednesday, April 11, 2012 by the Texas Legislature Public Health Committee I heard some of the most outrageous statements I think I have ever heard come from members of any governing body, well, other than Nancy Pelosi saying they would have to pass a the Affordable Healthcare Act to see what was in it. That was huge.

Dr. Tammy Gough, the presiding officer of the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners, told the committee they were researching corporate dentistry laws and wanted to “act as advisors to stakeholders and elected officials on the topic because we feel it will probably be addressed in the future with legislation.”
Joy Sparks, general counsel, said this was a “relatively new” issue. And all they do with people who are suspected of the corporate practice of dentistry is turn them over to the local or state prosecutors. She also, indicated they don’t even follow-up on that useless action.

I bet if someone asked the local and state prosecutors how many cases the dental board has ever turned over to them, I could count them on one hand. If I remember, someone on the committee did ask that question. The dental board was also asked they had ever asked for guidance as to what they laws said hat their duties were. Want to guess what that answer was?

Glenn Parker, acting Executive Director, who has been Director of Administration and Licensing since September 1, 2011 said: “I think everybody knows The Board of Dental Examiners is the agency that regulates the practice of dentistry in Texas.”

“We do that by regulating individual practitioners. We have no authority to regulate clinics or clinic owners.”
“We strictly license individual people”

“We report fraud to the HHSC, OIG the AG and recently we’ve been reporting it to the FBI.
When Glenn Parker was asked about why there was a big jump in Medicaid Fraud, Joy Sparks answered for him by saying, “My guess, Representative is that the reimbursement rates increased by Medicaid.”
Representative Carol Alvarado asked if the clinics committing most of the fraud were Corporate owned clinics , franchises or clinics owned by individual dentists or independent.

Joy Sparks stammered, “Representative, I’m not comfortable saying that. We are seeing both. We are seeing individual and we are seeing individual practitioners who are, we have dealt with and we are seeing…uh uh….clinics, who have done it also. I’m not sure what the % would be.”

Rep. Charles Schwertner asked Lisa Jones – TSBDE Director of Enforcement-if there were the same safeguard against the corporate practice of dentistry as there were corporate practice medicine.

Her answered, “Honestly, I don’t know if I can answer that question, we don’t regulate the clinics in any way. We have no jurisdiction over them whatsoever. We don’t keep statistics on how many clinics there are in Texas or how they operate.”

She stumbled and stammered several times trying to not say “corporate” and just use the word, “clinic”. That part was fun.

Glenn Parker then added, “The Dental Practice Act requires the dentist to make all the decisions regarding the treatment of a patient. The dentist who is in charge of…stutter…according to the law …stutter…stutter… of the dentistry decisions”

He then tells what the dental board has “heard” about what is happening. He says they have heard some corporations are requiring their dentists to bill $1000 if the child in 10 or younger, if they are 10 or older, or bill them $1,500 worth of work.

Could possibly the dental board have “heard” these in a Complaint!!!!!???
He then went on to say, “To the degree on which that happens we don’t really Representative Carol Alvarado – “If you guys have been concerned about this, what have you all done?”know.”
To the amazement of the legislative committee he added, “Can we prove that yet, no, we can’t. But I think that is what’s happening to a degree. We do not know how many clinics there are in Texas, dental clinics. We don’t know where they are. We don’t know who the legal own of them is, cause none of that is in the Dental Practice Act to require it.”

Dr. Tammy Gough, the presiding officer followed with, ”we regulate the licensed dentist who is performing the care in these clinics” .Their not running “willy nilly” as far as the actual patient care.” The license dentist is held responsible for maintaining records..and there can be no patient abandonment…”
Representative Carol Alvarado asked, “If you guys have been concerned about this, what have you all done?”

Pure silence!

Of course there was a lot of testimony on horror stories that would curl your toes. After all the hearing did last for 4 hours, 21 minutes and 21 seconds.

The big admission on the part of the dental board came with Joy Sparks, their general counsel admitted, “We do regulate dentistry.” “If you own a clinic you are practicing dentistry in the state. The problem is ..our remedy is we sanction a license. So if someone is practicing dentistry under a corporate clinic or private equity they are not licensed so we refer those cases, if we think, their … ya know what I’m saying.. we refer those cases to the Attorney General’s office…cause we don’t regulate…….when we asked if they own the clinic they say “I do”.

Then there was this, “They are practicing dentistry without a license. We don’t do anything with people who are practicing dentistry without a license.”
Well, there ya go.

You can continue reading or stop here.

More on Texas Laws:

The expected conduct of dentists practicing in Texas are written into the Texas Administrative Code, I guess to make sure the dental board knows what yardstick should be used to measure dentists behavior. But according to the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners it’s not in their job description, I beg to differ.
Chapter 108-Dentist Professional Conduct

Subchapter A-Professional Responsibilities
Rule 108.1 - A licensed dentist shall conduct his practice on the highest plane of honesty, integrity, and fair dealing. In order to safeguard the dental health and welfare of the public and the dentist-patient relationship and fix professional responsibility for dental services, no dentist or any other licensee or certificate holder of the Board shall:
(1) circumvent or attempt to circumvent any provision of the Texas Dental Practice Act or any rule, regulation, or order of the Board;