If you read this blog at all I’m sure you haven’t forgotten the Joint Staff Report issued a couple of weeks ago, by Senators Baucus and Grassley, where they told of the abuse and illegal activities of Small Smiles Dental and other corporate dental chains. With Small Smiles in particular they laid it out for everyone; from the founders to the current CEO and Garrison Group.
To top it off, they all but call the folks at HHS/OIC who are supposedly “monitoring” this company, incompetent imbeciles. It for certain shed light on the “pay to play” action going on between HHS/OIG and Small Smiles Dental Centers; sounded more like a game of Cat and Mouse Extortion between the two to me. If HHS/OIG were actually assessing the fines for this company laid out in the 2010 Corporate Integrity Agreement, I’d say it would add up to $4 Billion by now. (ok, I’m exaggerating, but it would be HUGE!) A couple of years ago, I was told by someone I won’t quote (they don’t like being quoted at HHS/OIG) that they…being OIG…take “Quality of Care Corporate Integrity Agreements very seriously. I say HA! (as I role my eyes)
Anyway, below are the responses from the AGD and ADA to the Baucus- Grassley Report. Hard to believe they are housed at the same address in downtown Chicago.
(I may have messed with the picture a little, but I couldn’t help it. I only have so much control, ya know)
The AGD Response
AGD applauds Senate report on corporate dentistry
Jul 26, 2013
CHICAGO, Ill., USA: The Academy of General Dentistry (AGD) is applauding a jointly issued U.S. Senate report that criticized large corporate dental practices that engage in deceptive overtreatment of patients. The report, co-released July 23 by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, is titled “Joint Staff Report on the Corporate Practice of Dentistry in the Medicaid Program.”
The report says that the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) “should exclude from participating in the Medicaid program” any other corporate entity that employs a “fundamentally deceptive business model resulting in a sustained pattern of substandard care.”
