Assess, Communicate, Decide; guidelines impossible for dentists working for corporate dental mills

The American College of Dentists (ACD) produces a card for the wallet that contains on one side the Core Values, which guide the ethical behavior of Fellows of the ACD, and on the reverse a list of questions called the ACD Test for Ethical Decisions, following the ACD acronym.

Assess
Is it true?
Is it accurate?
Is it fair?
Is it quality?
Is it legal?

Communicate
Have you listened?
Have you informed the patient?
Have you explained outcomes?
Have you presented alternatives?

Decide
Is now the best time?
Is it within your ability?
Is it in the best interest of the patient?
Is it what you would want for yourself?
This is a simplified but excellent reminder.

PC Holder = Owner Dentist

Just saying...

Sugar plums can dance in one's head.

Just Saying…

per·ju·ry [pur-juh-ree]
noun, plural -ries.
to lie like a dog; the willful giving of false testimony under oath or affirmation, before a competent tribunal, upon a point material to a legal inquiry

• Elements:
• Oath - person must be under oath during his testimony;
• Intent - you lied and you knew you were lying like a dog;
• Falsity - must have made told or more lying statements, and;
• Materiality – the lie could or would influence the legal proceeding

Section 1621 and 1623 of Title XVIII of the United States Criminal Code sections 1621 and 1623 deal with the crime of perjury.

Title XVIII of the US Criminal Code section 1623, makes it a Federal offense to knowingly make a false statement about a material matter while under oath before a Federal court.

State laws on perjury:

Kentucky CHAPTER 523 PERJURY AND RELATED OFFENSES

523.020 Perjury in the first degree.
(1) A person is guilty of perjury in the first degree when he makes a material false statement, which he does not believe, in any official proceeding under an oath required or authorized by law; or
(2) When he makes a material false statement which he does not believe in a subscribed written instrument for which an oath is required or authorized by law, with the intent to mislead a public servant in the performance of his official functions when such person is subscribing a warrant accusing his spouse of an offense under KRS Chapter 510.
(3) Perjury in the first degree is a Class D felony.

Kentucky Class D felony- not less than 1 year nor more than 5 years per charge  or in the case of perjury, per lie.

523.030 Perjury in the second degree.
(1) A person is guilty of perjury in the second degree when he makes a material false statement which he does not believe in a subscribed written instrument for which an oath is required or authorized by law with the intent to mislead a public servant in the performance of his official functions.
(2) Perjury in the second degree is a Class A misdemeanor.

Class A misdemeanor – 3 to 12 months in jail per charger or in this case or perjury, per lie.

523.040 False swearing.
(1) A person is guilty of false swearing when he makes a false statement which he does not believe under oath required or authorized by law.
(2) False swearing is a Class B misdemeanor.

Class B misdemeanor – usually no jail time

523.050 Inconsistent statements.
(1) When a person has made inconsistent statements under oath, both having been made within the period of the statute of limitations, the prosecution may proceed by setting forth the inconsistent statements in a single charge alleging in the alternative that one or the other was false and not believed by the defendant. In such case it shall not be necessary for the prosecution to prove which statement was false but only that one or the other was false and not believed by the defendant to be true.
(2) The highest offense of which a person may be convicted in such an instance shall be determined by hypothetically assuming each statement to be false. If perjury of different degrees would be established by the making of the two statements, the person may only be convicted of the lesser degree. If perjury or false swearing would be established by the making of the two statements, the person may only be convicted of false swearing.

 

Perjury

A. Perjury is the intentional making of a false written or oral statement in or for use in a judicial proceeding, any proceeding before a board or official, wherein such board or official is authorized to take testimony, or before any committee or subcommittee of either house or any joint committee or subcommittee of both houses of the legislature. In order to constitute perjury the false statement must be made under sanction of an oath or an equivalent affirmation and must relate to matter material to the issue or question in controversy.

Just Saying…

There just has to be a very special place in HELL as well Jail for those who choose to conspire and lie to cover-up the heinous abuse of children.

Just saying…

Marissa Kingery death settlement

This report says the Executive Director of the Ohio Dental Board “approved” the settlement.  What is God’s name did she have to do with anything, other than some responsibility into Marissa’s death in my opinion. 

How did such a conversation go anyway?  Did she say, “yeah, that’s a fair price”!!!

 

By Jack Shea Fox 8 News Reporter

6:14 p.m. EDT, October 28, 2011

LORAIN, Ohio—

The family of a Lorain County girl, who died while undergoing oral surgery, has settled a wrongful death lawsuit against the dentist who performed the surgery.

On December 21, 2010, 13-year-old Marissa Kingery, of Elyria, stopped breathing while having teeth removed at the Lorain office of Dr. Henry Mazorow.
An autopsy later concluded that Marissa's death was accidental, the result of complications from anesthesia administered before the surgery.

The lawsuit filed by the girl's family was settled by Dr. Mazorow's insurance company for one million dollars, to be shared by her parents and their civil attorney.

The Ohio State Dental Board helped negotiate the settlement, and then approved it.

Dental Board Executive Director Lili Reitz told Fox 8, "Our job is to ensure that dentists who are not safe, or who pose a threat, either remediate in the areas where they're deficient, or no longer practice."

[It’s a damn shame Ms. Reitz didn’t feel the same when Mazorow killed the other patient in 1997.  Sounds real noble Ms. Reitz, but your words are empty!]

On September 1, after consulting with the dental board, Dr. Mazorow agreed to retire at the age of 81.

[It took from December 2010 until September 1, 2011 for Mazorow to be forced into retirement?!  Also after 5 years, his record will be wiped clean as Ms. Reitz pointed out earlier this year!]

The case of Marissa Kingery was not the first time Mazorow had been sued for wrongful death. In 1997, 57-year-old Rosemary Johnson died from similar complications while undergoing surgery at the doctor's office. The case was settled out of court for $550,000.

Fox 8 News tried to talk to Dr. Mazorow about what happened to Marissa Kingery and Rosemary Johnson, but were unable to reach him.

Reitz said says the case illustrates the difficulty of regulating dentistry.
"What I have a hard time accepting is our limitations, and our limitations are the license of the individual, and whether or not that person should be, to hold a license, and if so, what needs to be done to ensure that they're safe."

[What’s so damn difficult about it, Ms. Reitz? ]

Lessons to be learned from 1992 dental malpractice and murder case

$1.6 Million Awarded to 13 Patients of Convicted Dentist

October 08, 1992|MARLA CONE | TIMES STAFF WRITER

Thirteen patients of a Costa Mesa dentist who was convicted in 1984 of murdering three patients were awarded $1.6 million in damages Wednesday to be paid by a state insurance association, according to their attorney.

Dr. Tony Protopappas was convicted of three counts of second-degree murder after two women and a teen-age girl died during a five-month period from lethal doses of general anesthesia he administered during routine dental work. He is serving a 15-year term at a state prison.

The $1 million in damages and $600,000 in interest awarded Wednesday is in addition to $500,000 the plaintiffs were awarded from insurers in 1987, said their attorney, William Humphreys of the Santa Ana law firm of Horton, Barbaro & Reilly.

After Protopappas' arrest, his dental firm as well as his insurance company went bankrupt, so the claims were sent to the California Insurance Guaranty Assn., which is a statewide fund created by insurers to handle claims of companies that go bankrupt.

SHOCKING! Ethics in dentistry has declined.

A study published in the October issue of the Journal of Dental Education reports ethics has declined in dentistry.  Shocking!  In fact, what actually qualifies as “ethics” education seems to have changed.  Shocking!  This information was developed by the authors, listed below and administered by the American Society for Dental Ethics.  American Society of Dental Ethics!?  Who knew?! 

I’m wondering if this “Ethics Society” was the impetus to the decline in and redefining of ethics education.  Wonder what kind of influence the dental mills and the Dental Group Practice Association (DGPA ) (see below) have of the ethics curriculum?  Ethics is something the mills certainly do not want practiced, it hinders production!

Jurisprudence must be in worse shape than ethics, considering all the illegal dental mills openly operating these days!  I wonder if there is an American Society of Dental Jurisprudence?

This study was done with data from 2008.  2011 is damn near over!! 

Now on with the abstract of the Study:

Abstract:
The survey was sent to the individual who directs the ethics curriculum at the fifty-six U.S. dental schools that had a full complement of enrolled pre-doctoral little time is devoted to ethics instruction in the formal curriculum.classes as of January 2008.

All fifty-six schools responded to the survey. The data suggest that, in general, little time is devoted to ethics instruction in the formal curriculum. The mean number of contact hours of ethics instruction is 26.5 hours, which represents about 0.5 percent of the mean clock hours of instruction for dental education programs reported in the most recent American Dental Association survey of dental education. While the amount of time devoted to ethics instruction appears not to have changed much over the past thirty years, what has changed are what qualifies as ethics instructionwhat has changed are what qualities as ethics instruction, the pedagogies used, and the development and availability of norm-referenced learning outcomes assessments, which are currently used by a number of schools.

Oklahoma–18 year old Jonathan Adams dies from infection after root canal

KOCO
HARRAH, Okla. -- Former Harrah football player Jonathan Adams died Monday, Oct. 10, 2011 after he developed a rare infection following a root canal, his family told Eyewitness News 5.
When Adams, 18, first developed a sore throat and fever, doctors thought the Northeastern State football player had strep throat. However, his family now believes he had a serious and rare bacterial infection that led to further complications and his eventual death.
“The main reason we wanted to (speak to the media) is so nobody else has to do this because if I can keep another parent from going through losing their child at 18, I did my job," said Johnie Adams, Jonathan's mother.
Adams was a 280-pound redshirt freshman on the Northeastern State University football team. His father, David Adams, said he hoped to have a future in football after he graduated from college.

Real dentists sharing real thoughts about sealants, dental mills, waste and fraud

   
Dentist 1:

It’s all designed to fool the taxpayer.  Politian's get into trouble for overspending.  They cut services, in this case Medicaid reimbursement fees for dental treatment. To keep the special interest happy, they agree to cover another procedure, everyone’s happy.

I work in an office (corporate mill) that takes Medicaid- MassHealth-in my state. which covers sealants on primary molars.  In my opinion, I think sealants on second primary molars (first primary, very rare) are beneficial in only a small percentage of cases; high risk, deep grooves, ability to obtain good isolation, etc.

Here's what I find troublesome and wasteful from a taxpayers point of view.
- We routinely seal all primary molars up to the age of 8, even on low risk patients with shallow grooves
-  90% of the time dental assistants place them alone with poor isolation.
I only do sealants when I have good isolation.  95% of the time I use my Isolite.  
With my criteria, I rarely seal primary molars. 
The dentists who do treatment plan sealants on a 3 year old, that will not even remain still for an exam or cleaning are wasting tax dollars in my opinion.  I do see pressure for assistants to do them from the corporate headquarters.  Corporate heads want a “sealant” report daily.  That irks the hell out of me.  It irks me even more when the dentist is not busy at all and still let's the assistant do them alone!