Small Smiles dentist Karen Chu, DMD blogs.

Yep, blogging of all things.  Not just one blog, but two of them. 

Karen Chu, DMD Blog
Phoenix Small Smiles Blog

On one of her blogs, Dr. Chu gives the public a fun “how to ” tip to help parent prepare children for their first dentist visit, to her I suppose. (you’ll see what I mean) 

She recommends story time saying:

“Much of the fear and upset young children experience on those 1st appointments come from having no "frame of reference" for  the strange environment, strange people and even stranger actions happening to and around them.”

To further assist she’s taken the time (a lot it appears) to put together a little slideshow/visual aid to help parents spin a fun,yet accurate, fairy tale.  It’s absolutely delightful, you’ll see.

Toddlers Dental Visit Story Karen Chu Dmd

View more presentations from karenchudmd

Last I had heard about Dr. Karen Chu, DMD, the fake owner dentist of all the Arizona Children Medicaid Dental Clinics (Small Smiles Dental) she was not allowed to do anything more than hygiene on patients. I had heard she had failed a few chart audits and there might be some issues with slashing children’s gums while drilling, restraining their heads, yelling at the children, telling the children if they don’t hold still their mother will leave them, and lying about the real amount of anesthesia she uses on the children, i.e. writes down 1.5 carpules of anesthesia when she really used 3. I also heard she will leave a child in the papoose board for well over an hour, headed toward two, but only documents the time limit of 1 hour.

Dr. Chu’s profile says she believes every child should have a beautiful smile.  I have to question then, what she considers beautiful.  This?

Being that Dr. Chu is an “owner dentist” she must be quite loyal to the corporate heads, they only allow those they can truly trust or blackmail to be “owner dentists” I think.  She was one of their top producers in 2010 that’s for sure.  However, she is not indispensible,  her last day was Friday December 28, 2011!  Whoop Whoop!!

(it’s likely when I post this, the blogs will disappear within minutes, but not to worry, I have the nice slideshow presentation backed up if necessary)

One dentist’s view on the ADA

Posted by Frenchpotato

The reason they can take advantage of you is simply because there are too many dentists, and a lot more are coming down the pike.

The ADA does not care.  The ADA has really disappointed me. ADA automatically gives all these new schools provisional accreditation.
 
I hope I live long enough to see dental schools start closing as they did in the 1980's.  Maybe I will live long enough to see people wake up and stop joining the ADA.

BTW, when I was being encouraged to join the ADA, other dentists would say, if you do not join and you  are ever sued, the opposing attorney will say, "she is not even a member of the ADA."

Seriously, I would like to hear ONE  good reason to be a member of the ADA.

The deaths at the dentist office we don’t hear about

This was posted on a dental forum/message board back in April 2011:

 

A friend of mine is an associate for a dental office. There are two doctors working that day, he and the other doctor ( i will call her Sue). Dr. Sue attempted to perform a surgical extraction #17 on the patient. The patient is 39 yr old male. After spending some time unsuccessfully trying to remove tooth, Dr. Sue decided to stop and refer to OS. Pt. was dismissed from the chair, and walked to front desk to reappoint with OS. Pt. complained of dizziness shortly after. He went to use he restroom. Dr. Sue didn't want to enter the restroom so she asked my doctor riend to check on him. He went and checked blood pressure of patient. Pt. had bp 250/110 and called paramedic.  Without going further into detail, Pt. was taken by paramedic. My friend doctor found out later the pt. had hx hypertension and didn't take his bp meds that day. Also, my friend found out only later that night pt also fell while trying to use restroom.  Pt. had surgery for something in his head (no specific details given) in ER and went into coma. Apparently he never came out and passed away a month later. My friend said Dr. Sue never checked her pt. med hx prior to procedure. No blood pressure was taken either prior to work and no consent forms were signed for extraction procedure. Dr. Sue did state in her notes that she administered local anesthetic with epinephrine and she stated same to paramedic upon questioning by them. My friend was the one who took the pt. blood pressure and called 911, helped get Oxygen for pt and stayed with patient. Dr. Sue was working on another pt the whole time and didn't come out until paramedic came. It seemed she defer all responsibility to my friend when it was her patient. What type of legal repercussions will this have on Dr. Sue or my friend doctor. I know he was not the treating doctor but since this is involved a pt. death what is going to happen legally here for everyone? The owner of the dental office is neither Dr. Sue or my friend. 

So you want to work for a corporate dental chain? What should Dr. Beth do?

 

 

Beth A. Dorain, DMD
Lafayette, Colorado

Employer: Perfect Teeth
Management Company: Birner Dental Management Service, Inc – Mark Birner, DDS-President

I am working for a corporate chain.  I do not like it, and I thought they were jerks.  The CEO called to yell at me about October's low production.  (FWIW, there were many legitimate reasons for the low production in October.)  Not worth listing here.  Production more than doubled in November.  The next day, he called to say he was going to change my compensation to purely a percentage of production.  After the first phone call,  I was 100% certain that I was going to quit in short order.  So, I went ahead and signed it.

Now, I've come to realize that I make 30% of insurance reimbursements and patient's co-pay.  The problem is that they take a lot of DMOs with capitation checks.  I spend a lot of time doing exams, fillings, etc. and discovered that there is no re-imbursement for those procedures.  The compensation for the work comes in the cap check.    But, they will not give me ANY percentage of that cap check.  I did not realize that I was doing exams, fillings, etc. FOR FREE.  In many cases, the fillings are $0.00 or the co-pays are ridiculously low. 

For example, I did three anterior root canals on one patient.  The total reimbursement for it was $120.00.  So, I made $36.00 for the three root canals. 
Is it even legal for this organization to expect me to work for FREE.
My contract does say (excludes capitation check)
I'm getting a lawyer!!!!!!!!

I did forget to mention one very important detail, one month after I signed the Addendum, I did get another offer which I accepted.  However, I am supposed to give my current employer 90 days notice (which I did on December 15.  That keeps me in "jail" until mid March.  I am hoping to not honor those 90 days due to the language of the original agreement. 

 

A very disturbing search term that was used December 29, 2011, that brought someone to my site.  The person was from Jackson, Mississippi and used the term “child overdoeses at kool Smiles”  IP was 76.107.149.87

If you have information about this, please email me at cckaddie@yahoo.com

Dr. Jay Jensen–Former Iowa dentist pays fine for poor quality dental care. He’s now in Leander, Texas

Dr. Jay Jensen is now unleashing his dental care to the citizens of Leander, Texas, and apparently he has a problem with quality.  He just paid a $5000 fine to settle one complaint and there are three more complaints against him.   He’s employed at Crystal Falls Dental.  For some reason, this guy still has a dental license!

November 28, 2011
WEST DES MOINES — A former West Des Moines dentist has been fined $5,000 over allegations he provided poor care.

The Des Moines Register reports Dr. Jay Jensen agreed to pay the fine to settle the case filed in 2009 by the Iowa Dental Board. He's accused of making several mistakes during a full-mouth reconstruction.

Jensen used to own Restoration Dental. His attorney says he's moved to Texas and now practices in the Austin area.

Meanwhile, another West Des Moines dentist has surrendered his license to the dental board after admitting to a relapse into alcoholism. Dr. Bruce Krook says he hasn't been accused of poor care and hopes to have his license reinstated in the future.

05771  LACL117004
ADRIENNE BOYD & BART BOYD VS JAY J JENSEN DDS ET AL
JENSEN DDS, JAY J
DEFENDANT

05771  LACL118969
SANDRA EGLI VS JAY J JENSEN DDS ETAL
JENSEN DDS, JAY J
DEFENDANT

05771  LACL120790
ZSUZSANNA F ASCHOFF & JAMES ASCHOFF VS JAY J JENSEN DDS ETAL
JENSEN DDS, JAY J
DEFENDANT

05771  LACL123316
DIANE J ROBERTS VS JAY J JENSEN DDS AND RESTORATION DENTAL
JENSEN DDS, JAY J
DEFENDANT

#4: Barber found guilty of offering bribe

Stephen Barber found guilty of offering bribe

Christmas Programming Guide

Byron Harris of WFAA-TV Channel 8– Dallas - will be airing an in depth documentary on crooked Medicaid dentists in Texas called “Crooked Teeth” It’s currently set to air at 11:30 on Sunday. 

Don’t miss it!

Well, this should scare the hell out of every parent in Kentucky- Merry Christmas

From the front page of the DOCS education website:

A concerned dentists writes about his worries, sadly they are directed to the wrong person.

Here is an email I received early this morning--December 23, 2011-from someone who spent all of 2 seconds on this blog.  He reports to be Dr. Glenn Krieger and from looking at my site stats, I have no reason to believe it’s not from Dr. Krieger.

Hey there.

I am a dentist of 20 years (general dentist).  I have a spot clean record and have even served on a peer review committee.

I just want to tell you that although I agree with what you are doing and why you are doing it, you are causing more harm than good. 

[Well, which is it, Dr. Krieger,  or is this your Carnegie sandwich methodology?  More harm, that good.  Hmmm….  You might want to look at your peers on that accusation. ]

There are certainly "bad apples" in dentistry and they should be removed, but scaring the general public with nasty adjective laden inflammatory obituaries is just plain wrong.

[Yes, Doc, there sure are some “bad apples”.  Do you have an estimate of just how many?  At least 2000 unqualified and/or are driven by corporate greed dentists preforming careless, reckless, and unnecessary procedures every day, and that’s a low ball number. 

No Sir, it is NOT wrong.  What is wrong is that no one else will tell it just like it is and not worry about all the political correct;soft spoken, sugar coated truths; that make it much easier for you to swallow. Can you tell me, Sir, just how many people died during dental procedures in from January 2010 to present?  If you can’t you need to be finding out!]