Agency Capture: Association of Dental Support Organizations (ADSO) main goal to get corporate dentists appointed to state dental boards

The Association of Dental Support Organizations, (ADSO) governmental affairs committee, chaired by non-dentist Heartland VP and 6 other non-dentist corporate guys decided that their number one priority is getting corporate/chain friendly dentists appointed to state dental boards.  

Read the article and tell me this isn't flat out corruption.  They are asking for volunteers in states where they have lobbyists.  They want to influence regulatory decisions.  And you've got to love the whole "often political preferences will apply to the candidate selection process".  

Government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the top dogs at the corporations.

---

October 2015 Association of Dental Support Organizations Quarterly Newsletter:

ADVOCACY UPDATE

The Importance of Getting DSO-supported Dentists on Dental Boards

The ADSO Government Affairs Committee was formed this summer.  The committee, chaired by John Pantazis, Heartland’s Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary with representatives from 6 other ADSO member companies, meets monthly and is charged with providing the ADSO with strategic guidance on state and federal legislative and regulatory issues.  Among the committee’s top priorities is promoting DSO-supported dentists for appointments to state dental boards. 

Board appointments are a top priority for the ADSO government affairs team because many of the state issues the DSO industry faces grow out of dental board actions.  We strongly believe that having one or more DSO-supported dentists or strong public sector members on the board involved in discussions and rule-making will go a long way in mitigating state legislative and regulatory issues we have faced in recent years. 

While we are happy to promote candidates in any state, we recognize that we are much more likely to have success in one of the 13 states where we have a contract lobbyist on the ground to assist in shepherding the candidate(s) through the process. So make a committed effort when openings are coming up to reach out for potential candidates.  We include in our Government Affairs Weekly Round-up, which is distributed every Friday, the list of states with lobbyists where we need our members help to promote candidates (if you are not on the distribution list for the Round-up and would like to be, please contact Wendy Chew).  The lobbyists are able meet with the governors’ appointment staff and follow up throughout the decision-making process.  They can also assist the dentist in getting letters of support from state legislators or other recognized leaders in the state to support their nominations.

With few exceptions, Board appointments are made by the governor of the state.  Dental boards generally consist of dentists, hygienists, public sector (non-dental related) members and sometimes academics.  All states have rules around the appointments and can include: how long the term of service lasts; requirements on how long the candidate has been a resident of the state; how long the dentist/hygienist have practiced in the state; what area of the state the appointee needs to be from; as well as many other possible requirements.  Since the appointments are made by the governor of the state, often political preference will also apply to the candidate’s selection process.  

In the past year, the ADSO has helped get DSO-supported dentists on the dental boards in Colorado, Iowa and Florida and are actively working on appointments in every other state where we have lobbyists. In addition to supported dentists, the ADSO has also promoted public sector members for state dental board appointment.

If you haven’t already done so, please participate in the ADSO database project.  Your dentists’ information is confidential and will not be shared in any way, but having the information in the database allows us to identify potential candidates in states where there are openings on the dental board. Participation in the database also helps us when we have legislative issues in a state.  We are able to reach out through a contact at your company to activate supported dentists on issues of concern to our industry.

NY Attorney General says Aspen has to change it’s ways; or did he?

What apparently escaped the NY Attorney General is that the parent company is the actual owner of the dental practices and the "owner dentist” doesn’t own diddly-squat. 

Hey NY AG! The  "Dental Management Companies" hires individual dentists as salaried employees who then pretend to "own" the clinics!  But you know that, right?

In the case of Small Smiles, the original "owner dentists" paid $10.00 per clinic or less. But when we caught on the price went up to a whopping $100. That's a pretty sweet,,, "owning" a business that generates millions of dollars a year, for $100.  Sign me up!

June 2016 New York State Attorney General Settlement Order With Aspen Dental

Kool Smiles Dental–NCDR,LLC-FFL Partners’ written response to Senators Grassley and Baucus

Anyone buying this load of crap? Of course not. I can’t imagine sitting in my office reading this fairy tale and not getting angry as a wet hen (whatever that is). My blood would be boiling.

Kool Smiles Dental Centers Letter to Senators Grassley and Baucus 02-03-2012

Limiting Private Equity Dentistry: A Report by Michael Davis, DDS

The full report with all referenced materials and index can be download here.  A handy tool for fighting these crimes against humanity.

Support for Limiting Private Equity Dentistry- made to New Mexico Board of Dental Health Care

Report submitted in response to request of
Dr. Robert Gherardi, New Mexico Board of Dental Health Care-
June 13, 2012

By: Michael Davis, DDS
Background

It is important to get up to speed, with specific nomenclature of Interstate Corporate Dentistry, and specific factors of related Case Law.

A Dental Management Service Organization (DMSO) controls the operations of their subordinate dental clinics. They pay staff salaries, including doctors’ salaries. They control the supplies available to each dental clinic. They (not the individual dentist) select the laboratory to be employed for lab services (dentures, crowns, bridges, etc.). They set production quotas and bonuses for individual doctors & individual clinics. They monitor and evaluate each clinical service provided, by each Provider they employ. They control the bank accounts of each individual dental clinic, and sweep those bank accounts on a very regular basis. They pay rent on real estate, of the clinic facilities. They select & maintain dental equipment for each subordinate clinic. They are responsible for the Licensure & Accreditation of each employee. They generally supply the Malpractice Insurance for their Employee Dentists, but often will not purchase “Tail Coverage”.

On paper, the DMSO owns very few hard assets, but actually pulls the strings, of the Practice of Dentistry. Their most valuable assets are their contractual obligations, which have been demonstrated by the Fifth Circuit in re: OCA, Inc. December 12 2008 (07-30430), to represent the “Unlicensed and Unlawful Practice of Dentistry”. Increasingly, we are today seeing more DMSOs, which are offshore registered corporations, versus Delaware incorporation.

AUA Private Equity Partners LLC and Topspin Partners co-investing into Brighter Dental Care; Owner-operators of clinics are brothers Todd and Scott Singer.

Have these folks not been paying attention to Church Street Health Mangement-Arcapita-CIT-American Capital-Small Smiles deal?  What about Valor Investment Partners, and Richard Malouf in Texas?!!

In coming days they will swear up and down they don’t own anything, they just give our money to folks who say have Management Service Agreements with clinics. AUA Private Equity and Topspin Parnters, you better have attorney’s look over this more carefully.

Hint: Don’t use Waller Lansden… Not until you need a sweet deal  the the DOJ, then they are your guys. Just saying… Todd and Scott, this is to you, take the money and run..fast as you can! I bet I know what you did, but do they?
AUA Private Equity Partners LLC, New York-based private equity firm, introduced the Topspin team to the deal and co-invested. The owner-operators of the company, brothers Todd and Scott Singer, retained large equity stakes in the company.
 

From the folks at PE Hub:
Topspin Partners LBO, a lower mid-market buyout shop, has made a substantial investment in Brighter Dental Care, a chain of dental practices in New Jersey, Buyouts reported earlier, citing firm Managing Director Leigh Randall .
The company’s seven practices perform general dental, periodontic, orthodontic, endodontic and oral surgery procedures, and employs a business model in which the patient spends more time with the dentist early on than is customary at a typical practice in order to plan long-term care, Randall said. The company’s enterprise value is between $10 million and $50 million, he said.

“It’s very much a ‘Let’s see what the state of your oral is,’” Randall said. “It’s not just about a getting a dental cleaning.”

Roslyn Heights, N.Y.-based Topspin typically invests $5 million to $10 million of equity in its deals, and is about 60 percent invested in its debut buyout fund, a $132 million vehicle it raised in 2007.

AUA Private Equity Partners LLC, another New York-based private equity firm, introduced the Topspin team to the deal and co-invested. The owner-operators of the company, brothers Todd and Scott Singer, retained large equity stakes in the company.
Beyond the company’s business model, Topspin was drawn to some trends favoring the dental practice industry. Estimated expenditures for dental care grew at a compound annual rate of approximately 7 percent from 1998 to 2008, and are expected to grow at a rate of approximately 6 percent over the following decade and reach $180 billion by 2019, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Ayman Risha–not a dentist, but neither is Midwest Dental Corporation, but it appears that’s not an issue

Star Tribune

St. Cloud dental clinic owner denied license

• Updated: April 21, 2012 - 5:16 PM

An unlicensed St. Cloud dental clinic owner who altered billing codes and directed staff to perform unnecessary procedures was denied a license last month, according to an order by the Minnesota Board of Dentistry.
In 2009, the board received a complaint about Ayman Risha, who holds a foreign-issued Bachelor of Dental Surgery degree.
In addition to finding Risha unlicensed as a clinic owner and a practitioner, a board investigation determined that he had "engaged in fraud or deception ... by providing diagnoses and preparing treatment plans that were not warranted," the order stated. Risha directed staff to follow the plans, falsify periodontal probing numbers and take unnecessary X-rays, as well as scratching expiration dates off products and changing billing codes to justify procedures, the order said.
The investigation also determined that Risha's clinic lacked adequate infection control procedures, including a disposal program and a plan to handle exposure to infection.
In March 2010 the board ordered Risha to cease his unlicensed activities. Two months later, he applied for a license by examination.
After a board committee recommended in 2010 that he be denied a license, Risha contested the decision but lost by default when he missed a 2011 hearing, the order stated.
The board ordered Risha to pay $8,794 in costs, including expenses for an administrative law judge.

ROTFL–Aspen Dental propaganda quoting the group who promotes illegal practice of dentistry; The DGPA

From the Aspen Dental Blog

Dispelling misconceptions about Dental Service Organizations

March 5, 2012 by Bethany Tuzzolino

A recent online article¹ based on the results of an August 2011 survey of 1,500 dentists asked participants to rank what they consider to be their highest concerns as practitioners and small business owners. They identified “Growth and Influence of Corporate Dentistry Companies that Hire Dentists” as a high priority challenge to their success. The respondents ranked this “frustration” about the current state of the profession the third highest category in the Priority 1 section of the survey, right behind “Third-Party Dictation of Treatment Plans and Setting Fees” and mid-level or expanded-function dental practitioners, and right above “Overpopulation of Dentists and Hygienists.” The author notes that “some of these firms have moved into geographic areas already saturated with dentists.”¹ This situation is understandably concerning to private practitioners, who are essentially entrepreneurs trying to establish a territory and stable patient base. It is, however, a well-known fact that dental school does not teach graduates how to successfully find the ideal location for, or run, a private practice.

Here’s an idea, close down the illegal operations. Every treatment they deliver within their walls is illegal to do! Every x-ray taken, is being done so, illegally.

Since there seems to be confusion in the world of prosecution and regulation as to whether these corporate dental companies, such as Kool Smiles, Aspen, Heartland and now Wal-Mart, are legal or illegal there is a comprehensive review of all 50 states ready, just for the clicking. Go ahead, try it. CLICK HERE 

Dental boards say they don’t regulate the corporate mills in any way, however, North Carolina is proving that not to be true. So far, it’s the only state taking the initiative but it’s unclear as to whether they are only targeting Heartland Dental or all, and I mean, ALL corporate dental practices. [I say this since I know there are some regional clinics operating at full speed down there with dollars headed directly to Colorado’s Michael DeRose’s pockets. By the way, he’s on the List of Excluded Individuals and Entities, where he’s not to profit from Medicaid in any way. But, heck, I know that’s small potatoes, right?] 

Persecutors, on every level, from the local city or county prosecutors all the way to “The” Attorney General of the United States, seem to ignore the fact that the corporate dental mills are just flat out illegal operations. Every bill they send the US taxpayer is a fraudulent bill!  Every one of them!! Every treatment they deliver within their walls is illegal to do! Every x-ray taken, is being done so, illegally. What is not to understand and what are they failing to “get”? Anything?

The corporations should not be ripping the taxpayer from stem to stern, using taxpayer dollars as toilet paper on their $10 million jets and authorities should be lined up outside these place with warrants and handcuffs.

This dragon has been slayed and quartered on this website, time after time, after time, after time, for well over 4 years now and Medicaid fraud is still a run away train when it comes to dentistry.

Since December there has been a noticed increase in individual dentists getting nailed for Medicaid fraud, with most of them getting some jail time along with their fine and repayment. Remember, the Medicaid fraud in dentistry is mostly treatment on children in case anyone has forgotten that!

So for any prosecutor with a set of balls out there, even if you have a teeny weeny set, that just might want actually bring criminals to justice-criminals who are not only stealing from the taxpayer, but physically hurting children-click here and check your state laws. It’s all laid out for you, it just cant’ get any easier, truly. Then get a warrant and shut these places down. If you need assistance, call me. Hell, I work for free!

50 State Review of the Corporate Practice of Dentistry and the Laws that prohibit it.

If you need further assistance, click here on how the scam works.  It’s been told every way I know to tell it. Honestly, it’s not that confusing.