There are hoards of evidence that dentists and employees of dental chains owned and operated by Wall Street fat cats have production quotas to meet. Some chains call a daily “budget” amount, while others call it “goals”, “targets” or “forecasts”. Be it the number of patients or dollar amount the company expects the employee to bill or sell, it’s still a quota.
The pressure to meet these quota’s appears to be the foundation on which the overtreatment, mistreatment, malpractice, and brute force used on children is based.
It’s not just the private equity firms, like Morgan Stanley, or the regionalized dental management organizations like Dental Professionals of Texas (now MB-2) bilking the Medicaid system. It’s also our medical colleges it appears.
A student used to be denied his or her degree because they were short credits. At New York University College of Dentistry (NYUCD), graduating is based on meeting a production goal.
It was because she had failed to meet the $38,000 in production quota at NYU’s David B. Kriser Dental Center.
What does New York University College of Dentistry call its production quota system? It’s called “Practice Model Value” (PMV). It is purportedly to train dentists to treatment real patients for a fee. Well, golly gee, wonder if they had no clue that would happen if they used their skills after graduation?
I wonder if it’s some kind of scoring system to see how much value any particular student can be to a corporate dental chain. That seems to be what the name of the program implies.
We know for sure it is a revenue generating system for the college at the expense of patients health and the taxpayer. NYUCD accepts several Medicaid managed care programs.
I know what you’re thinking, maybe this was some kind of program to aid in payment of her education. That answer is, no. Meeting the $38,000 quota is required by each student in addition to the $70,000 a year tuition.
According to court documents, students were required to meet a quota $38,000 in their last two years of dental school. In the spring of 2009, Dr. Harry Meeker, Katie’s instructor, says he notified Katie about her deficiency. But the earliest records showing any communication to the fact was May 25, 2009.
So, what did Katie do? Again, according to court documents, after hearing of her situation and before she planned to move to Boston in two days, Katie did what others pressured to meet quota’s do. She fabricated patient records. She charted she she provided patients with 16 extractions, and bleaching on one afternoon and ponied up the $2000 herself. The treatments never happened.
However, the New York Post reports Katie was advised by faculty at NYUCD to pay the difference; later changed its mind and put her back to work. My guess it’s a little of both. She went back to work, called every person she knew, tried to convince strangers on the street to come in for treatment for which she was going to pay.
Katie later received a letter from NYUCD telling her the school had “nullified” her degree.
According to a New York Post report. “The school took in about $13 million at the Kriser Dental Center in 2009.” (the full report is below)
In February 2011, the New York Supreme court upheld NUYCD’s nullification of Katie’s degree.
However, October 15, 2012 the Appellate court overturned that decision and Ordered NYUCD to granted Katie her degree. Go Katie!
Is attending dental college no longer about training dentists to treat the public’s dental health? Has it turned into training production machines and calling them dentists?
The one place people thought they could go, the one place parents thought they could take their children where medical need would be top priority is now at question.
I now have to wonder, was some student and or students needing to meet a production goal at VCU where Jacobi Hill died? Were these dentists meeting graduation production goals?
What about the students at NYU? They receive treatment via the Stu-Dent Plan. Are they over treated?
Katie Kickertz is suing NYU and has since gone on to get a degree from Purdue University. Last week get finally got her dental license to practice in Illinois.
I’m afraid Katie may run upon consequences for not meeting production quotas again.
Related:
David B. Kriser Dental Center
Becoming a patient at NYUCD
Patient Bill of Rights at NYCD
Medicaid dental plans accepted at NYCD
NYUCD Contact:
General Information – 212-998-9800
Office of the Dean – 212-998-9898
Patient Information – 212-998-9872
kcrowley@nypost.com
October 15, 2012
NYU dental school bitten in former student's quota lawsuit
They’re extracting more than teeth at NYU’s dental school.
A former honors student says she was forced to meet a $38,000 quota in clinical work for the school — and then had to buy a whole other education after it pulled her two degrees on graduation day over a $2,000 shortfall.
“I was devastated . . . It was horrible,’’ said Katie Kikertz, now 28 and a licensed dentist in Illinois.
She recently won a suit to have her BA and dental degrees from NYU honored.
The Manhattan appellate court decision said the school’s treatment of her “shocks the conscience.”
“Katie was tortured and tormented by NYU for 2 1/2 years,’’ said her lawyer, Jeffrey K. Brown of Carle Place, LI. “This case is about standing up to bullies, and Katie was bullied by NYU.”
Brown said Kikertz was blindsided in 2009 when NYU brass withheld her degrees because she was $2,000 short on what she raked in for the school at a clinic in its Kriser Dental Center. NYU dental students — already on the hook for well over $70,000 a year in tuition and other costs — are obligated to generate a total of $38,000 for the school in their last two years. The school took in about $13 million from the practice in 2009.
Kikertz said NYU officials told her of her shortfall on graduation day — the day before she was due to start dental grad school for a specialty in pediatrics at Boston University.
“They told me, ‘If you want to graduate and get your diploma, you’re going to have to give us the money,’ ” she told The Post.
Kikertz said faculty advisers encouraged her to simply make up the difference. She made a credit-card payment to the school.
But hours after her payment, school officials deemed it an ethical breach, canceled it, and ordered her to return to work off the debt, Kikertz said.
NYU denies telling her to pay and will appeal the court’s decision.
Kikertz said she spent the next month cajoling relatives and strangers to come to the NYU clinic. After meeting her quota, she returned to grad school, she said.
But she soon got a letter telling her NYU had nullified her degrees and she had to quit.
“Professionally, I felt I had wasted my entire life,’’ she said, adding she contemplated suicide and had a breakdown.
As her court case continued, she got a BA from Purdue University and a dental degree from Illinois University. She got her license last week and plans to practice in Illinois.
Kikertz is suing NYU for millions of dollars in a separate suit over the ordeal. Her suit claims NYU charges patients for unnecessary procedures.