Gov. Abbott Appoints Aspen Dental Dentist to to Texas State Board of Dental Examiners

Agency Capture at it’s finest!







http://www.kbtx.com/content/news/Local-dentist-named-to-State-Board-of-Dental-Examiners-458947533.html

Checking her dental licenses at the board and it’s sparkling clean.

However:

June 3.2016-Kimberly Haynes, DMD, received non-discipline remedial plan because of a complaint from a patient.  She was found to have fallen below the minimum standard of care, failed to keep adequate records and no informed consent from the patient among other things.

I'm told, David Tillman, the presiding officer is a weak leader and appointed for that very reason. I'm told board member Bryan Henderson, DDS is pro-DSO.  Kimberly Haynes, DMD, as we see is an Aspen dentist and H. Jorge Quirch, D.D.S is a Heartland dentist. One more and the DSO's will have a majority. Not that it matters because I'm also told the hygienists back the DSO's as well.

Texas State Board of Dental Examiners is a RAGING DUMPSTER FIRE!

Here is an article you may have interest in posting on DTM.   All of this information is in good faith and written for the purpose to expose the mismanagement at the Texas State Dental Board. 

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It has been six months since an investigative reporter has exposed Kelly Parker's mismanagement and unethical behavior as the executive director at the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners.  Since then, the Board Members have done NOTHING.  She has brought disgrace onto the Board and dental profession as evidenced by negative media reports and multiple employee complaints.

Several employees brought their concerns directly to Board members only to hit a wall.  Employees jeopardized their own jobs by contacting Board members to report what was happening with the executive director they appointed.  Dr. Steve Austin, DDS, the presiding officer of the Board, refused to even listen because he feared being involved in any type of subsequent employee hearing.  See email below.

Kelly Parker shut down criminal investigations which allowed dentists and other licensees to potentially get away with criminal activity.  State Senators Jose Menendez and Charles Schwertner, as well as the Governor's office, were alerted to this fact.  Hello?!  Where are these officials??  Where are the Texas Rangers?  Or the Attorney General's Office?? 

At least nine former criminal investigators can testify in this matter.  NONE of them have yet been contacted by anyone, not even the senators or governor's office even though they said they would "look in to it."  Many of these investigators still have copies of their investigative reports that were written.  These ex-investigators are just waiting to share their stories with the appropriate authorities.

All but THREE criminal investigators left the Texas Dental Board this year because of Kelly Parker.  There are NO criminal investigators left in the entire Dallas region, the San Antonio region, or the entire Houston region!  None of them have been replaced.  After the entire investigative supervisory staff left this year, she promoted one sergeant to lieutenant who resigned his position after just a few weeks of having to deal with Kelly Parker.  He quit the agency shortly thereafter as well.  The mismanagement and unethical decisions coming from Parker prompted many people to leave without having another job to go to.  Once again, NONE of the Board Members want to address the nightmare they created.

It is estimated that over HALF the agency employees have left since Kelly Parker and Nycia Deal started running the agency into the ground.  Due to the large number of vacancies that have been caused by Kelly Parker, the agency HAS to be behind hundreds and hundreds (if not over a thousand) of complaints waiting to be investigated.  She has no one to investigate these complaints!  They are apparently trying to use various staff to clear out complaints.  NO ONSITES are being conducted at dental clinics, NO SANITATION/STERILIZATION inspections are being conducted, so how can they be claiming they're protecting the public??? 

Kelly Parker and Nycia Deal shut down onsite inspections and the ability to allow investigators to issue sanitation citations to violators.  That has been stopped for well over a year.  What is the purpose of that?  Makes as much sense as stopping criminal investigations!  With all the changes being made, one could easily argue that they are in the business of protecting DENTISTS, NOT THE PUBLIC!!

An independent outside audit should take place.  Chances are extremely high that numbers about backlogged cases are being hidden.  The same goes for the severely backlogged cases that are being bungled by Dr. Brook Bell and her dental division.

Kelly Parker has lost her second executive administrative assistant.  This is the second one in a row to just quit.  She lost her communications director, too.  Kelly Parker reportedly received a large number of negative feedback from a department-wide survey that was sent about her.  This should be very telling that all of these new employees already have nothing but negative to report about her and her management style.

In the two years that Kelly Parker and Nycia Deal have so poorly mismanaged the TSBDE, are they any better off than where they were two years ago?  ABSOLUTELY NOT.  In fact, they're probably in such a state of disarray, it will be a MONUMENTAL task for a new executive director to come in and right this sinking ship.

The real shame is that none of the Board Members care enough about their profession, much less the public, to deal with the problem they created by putting Kelly Parker and Nycia Deal in charge to make blunder after blunder.  Hundreds, if not more than a thousand dental complaints are not being tended to.  Hundreds, if not more than a thousand complaints are waiting to be reviewed.  The entire state of Texas only has three experienced investigators left.  People have been leaving the agency in droves.  They cannot retain staff.  Morale is abysmal. 

The TSBDE is now a raging dumpster fire and the Board Members seemingly ignore these facts.

                                                                                                                                                                     ---Anonymous

Texas State Board of Dental Examiners Loss of Investigators and Staff, is Michael Melanson’s Gain

 

By: Debbie Hagan

 

Reports abound this week about the Texas State Board of Dental Examiner’s finding insufficient  of wrong doing by Dr. Michael Melanson as it related to the death of Daisy Lynn Torres:

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The dentist who was treating a 14-month-old girl for cavities when she died after going under anesthesia has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners.

Dr. Michael Melanson was working on Daisy Lynn Torres’ teeth at the Austin Children’s Dentist in northwest Austin on March 29, 2016 when she suffered complications and died. The child’s autopsy report ruled that anesthesia caused her death.

There was an anesthesiologist on-site during Daisy Lynn’s appointment, according to a 911 recording and a spokesperson from Austin Children’s Dentistry. However, what as at issue in a lawsuit is a portion of the autopsy including a report from a forensic dental examiner, Dr. Robert Williams. The report questioned why the child was having a dental procedure before she died. The report prompted Austin Children’s Dentistry to suspend Dr. Melanson, who no longer works at the practice, last July.

At the time, the dental office said he would remain suspended until the State Board finished its investigation.

Read entire story here.

I think the keyphrase here is “finshed its investigation”. 

Melanson’s attorney Mike Yanof said, “The dental board has closed its investigation and they found insufficient evidence to support proceeding further in the matter.”

Could that be because there are no investigators left to investigate? The last Lieutenant Investigator, Travis Mott, took a demotion back to Sergent and Kelly Parker has “decided to make investigators file clerk, arranging fild folders for the Dental Review Panel, according to once source.

One reader wrote:

I am seething upon hearing this, as there was testimony in the autopsy report by forensic dentist Dr. Robert Williams that no dental disease was present upon autopsy of Daisy Lynn Torres. The child need not have been administered general anesthesia or subconscious sedation to the level to create death.  While the dentist may not have caused the death, the circumstances that precipitated the death surely involved the dentist's and clinic's actions to cause a surgical procedure to be done. If the TSBDE foing "no evidence," what about the misdiagnosis of dental disease in the name of bilking Medicaid?

The civil lawsuit will, no doubt, march ahead.  However, given the past evidence of this dentist's shaky affiliations and representations of skills, competency, fraudulence, and ill-will, the TSBDE just didn't look. Just as they glazed over my claim...they are toothless.

I agree.

Texas State Board of Dental Examiners: Decaying Rapidly Under Direction of Executive Director Kelly Parker

By: Debbie Hagan

DTM has learned that in recent weeks the following people have submitted letters of resignation or already ended their employment with the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners(TSBDE):

1. David Durkop, Lieutenant Investigator for Texas Dental Board;
2. Greg Gilchrist, Lieutenant Investigator for Texas State Board of Dental Examiners;
3. Donnie Head, Assistant Director of Investigations at Texas State Board of Dental Examiners Jones, Director of Investigations;
4. Lisa Jones, Director of Investigations, and;
5. Jeff Roach, Lieutenant Investigator for Texas Dental Board

Additionally, other than the Legal Division, every department head has walked out and quit without notice, including the Licensing Department head.

So what happened to the already troubled TSBDE?

Ms. Kelly Parker is what happened.

The TSBDE hired Ms. Parker as the new Executive Director in September 2015. Then they gave her Cate Blanche to run the board as she saw fit and things changed drastically.

Prior to Kelly Parker’s hiring the standing Orders from Director of Investigation Lisa Jones to the board investigators were to share anything they had with other law enforcement agencies.

Parker quickly changed that and demanded that she give her stamp of approval the sharing of any and all information with other agencies—law enforcement or otherwise.  If agencies called investigators requesting information, they were to be directed to the Legal Division, pronto.

Parker is not focused on public safety, not justice, not oversight nor fair resolution. Parker's focus is on "Days to Case Resolution”, nothing else.

“Days to Case Resolution” is how the Board is rated by the Legislature as well as internally by the Board for the Investigative Division. The speed of the case is much more important than the quality of the case. Criminal cases take more time and manpower than Administrative cases, resulting in few, if any, criminal cases being worked.

Additionally, despite it being a violation of Texas law, the Legal Division decided that the DSOs could own, operate or maintain a dental office as long as the DSO did not direct clinical care. We all know that never happens, right?

Gosh, wish I could just decide to change the speed limit law to suit me on any given day.

Throwing another turd in the proverbial punchbowl, was Parker’s insistence that a new database go “live” on September 1, 2016, the beginning of the fiscal year, ready or not.

It was not!

There are two databases: Versa(VR) and Paper Vision(PVE) that are supposed to “talk” to each other, so to speak, and work with the Health Care Professional Council, which consists of 5 agencies; the board of dentistry being one of them.

There are no Standard Operating Procedures in place and the databases being incompatible with each other which means all data has to be entered twice; once into VR and again into PVE.

PVE was so not ready investigators learned for months all the data entered and reports marked “approved” that was to send the matter on to the next “work step” it went to a virtual “dead letter box”.

Why?

Because the next “work step” had not even been created yet! That’s right, folks, it went nowhere and to no one!

Talk about waste of time, money and resources!

With the recent departure of supervisors, the Board has lost close to 40 years of dental investigative experience and over 100 years of law enforcement experience. This is not a common investigative skill set and can take several years to develop.