Thursday, April 17, 2008

Dan DeRose and His Connection To Small Smiles/FORBA


Cagey looking character isn't he? That's is Dan DeRose (left).

Besides having his name all over many of the Corporate documents associated with Small Smiles FORBA, a "Confidential Document" on the Internet for all to see, (here) (copy at bottom of post) clearly shows that DD Marketing is representing themselves as FORBA, LLC..
(Small Smiles, Smile High...DeRose Dental Dynasty, whatever you want to call them today...)

See Todd Cruse's email address in document as well as the physical address.

So why is his dad, Ed (Edward) and his brother, Mike (Michael) taking all the heat for the years of abuse of children in their various dental clinics?

I was sent an email by Mr. Cruse and invited to tour one of their facilities just the other day, so Mr. Cruse must still work for who....? FORBA or DD Marketing? I bet if you ask him it would depend on what day or letter head was in his printer and to what "hat" he was wearing on any given day.

Anyway, Mr. Cruse gave me a wonderful idea. After talking it over with my mate we've decided to use our summer time off to travel a bit. We are going to visit as many Small Smiles and Kool Smiles in the East and South East as we can. I'm going to take my personal Papoose Board, go to the clinics, ask parents there if their child was strapped down in one of them, do some serious interviews, filming etc. I think this is just a wonderful idea!

Thanks a bunch Todd!



CONFIDENTIAL DOCUMENT SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES, IOWA MEDICAID ENTERPRISE

March 2, 2006

Response to:

RFI: MED-06-025

Vendor Information:

FORBA, LLC

415 North Grand Avenue

Pueblo, CO 81003

719 546 3333

Vendor Business Background:

FORBA, headquartered in Pueblo, CO, identifies, develops and manages clinics that provide dental care to children who are enrolled in Medicaid and the State Child Health Insurance Program (“SCHIP”). The Company’s history began with a solo dental practice in Pueblo, CO in 1928. Over the past 40 years, the Company has focused on children’s dentistry, including serving children eligible for Medicaid. The Clinic in southern Colorado was the first practice in the state to see Medicaid children when dental became a Medicaid benefit for children in 1967. In 1995, the Company expanded beyond Pueblo and opened a Medicaid-only children’s dental clinic in Colorado Springs. The Company’s early expansion was in support of the State of Colorado’s effort to improve access to dental care for the State’s Medicaid-eligible children. Due to the successes of reaching the underserved population from the Colorado clinics, FORBA was formed to develop children’s Medicaid/SCHIP dental clinics throughout the United States. The Company successfully manages dental clinics in fifteen states. The Company currently manages 41 clinics, which in aggregate have approximately 750,000 patient visits per year.

Identification of Services

Expected Outcome: “Medicaid eligible children 12 years of age and under to receive age appropriate dental care by having an established dental home for each child.”

We believe a successful Vendor or provider should provide at a minimum all preventive services contained in the definition of the federal EPSDT standard. In addition to providing the screenings and diagnostics required by EPSDT, a successful Vendor of dental services should have the capacity and experience required to perform restorative services necessary to improve a child’s oral health.

Realizing the geographical challenges within the state of Iowa that a Vendor may encounter when trying to establish a dental home for all children under the age of 12, a Vendor should establish regional general dental clinics and then either establish a mobile dental strategy to reach out to outlying rural areas or establish partnerships with single operating dentists in such rural areas.

KEEP IN MIND, OUR DEFINITION OF A VENDOR IS A PROVIDER AND NOT A MANAGED CARE ORGANIZATION (MCO) OR THIRD PARTY ADMINISTRATOR (TPA) who have to contract with organizations such as ourselves and/or individual dentists to fill out a network.

Local Partnerships

A successful provider of dental services should establish partnerships with local health clinics, school districts, Head Start programs, Title V contractors and other third parties identified as part of the local public health system. The partnerships would require local public health establishments to help the vendor communicate available services by providing mailing lists and prospective patient information to the vendor, in the spirit of access to care, in an electronic format. The Vendor agrees to not share any prospective patient information to ensure confidentiality. The partnership should also encourage members identified as part of the local health system to apply for grants and public funds that would be able to assist with public outreach and awareness of the new services provided by the Vendor.

In addition to any public grant monies made available, the Vendor would be responsible for outreach to the underserved population through direct mailings, social caseworker coordination and on-site periodic screenings in the public school system. Direct mail pieces that would be used to inform the eligible population about the services available would also help to educate parents and children through written oral hygiene information and reminders as to the importance of regular visits to their dental home.

Once a child attends an appointment with the vendor, sufficient time must be invested for an exam, x-rays, prophylaxis, fluoride treatment, preventative education and consultation with parent or guardian regarding further treatment needed. Appointments for restorative work and six month recalls will be made and it will be the Vendor’s responsibility to confirm these appointments and get them rescheduled if the appointments are broken by the patient.

How Service Shows Fulfillment/Progress

The dental services articulated above will fulfill the expected outcome of receiving appropriate dental care by definition of providing preventive, diagnostic and restorative work on the child’s teeth.

The regional dental clinics of approximately 8000 square feet will provide the dental home contemplated by the RFI itself and settle the issue of geographical challenges mentioned above. We know Iowa is divided up into quadrants and it is possible we could put 1 clinic in each quadrant in a population center and then work our regional rural strategy out of the main clinics in each quadrant [the mobile van and partnerships with single dentists in rural areas]. This provides a physical dental home for each child under the age of 12 throughout the state of Iowa.


How Vendor Shows Fulfillment/Progress

In order to measure the progress of a program that includes a network of regional dental facilities and local public health system partnerships, a study of the number of children receiving patient visits prior to the “roll out” of a successful Vendor’s program would need to be conducted by the state of Iowa. Using that report as the benchmark starting point it would then need to be compared on a semi annual basis to data provided by the Vendor of those patients who actually experienced a dental visit once the program had commenced. The study should include information based on age band and regional residence of the patient population, in addition to general oral health conditions. This reporting will prove out the dental home statistics needed by the State of Iowa for compliance purposes. We understand the state of Iowa attached data in this regard to this RFI and we would request this data to be updated as often as possible over the ensuing months and years as it will be necessary to measure progress on achieving the expected outcome outlined in the RFI.

The actual construction of the dental clinics will show progress toward the expected outcome. Once financing of the dental clinics is put in place and the location is decided upon, ground breaking to opening can happen in less than 120 days. The full scope including the front end work can be done in 6 months, beginning to end. There would be obvious overlap if the clinics were not built all at the same time. If one contractor was used, all four clinics could be built within 12 months.

We realize that we represent a different business model than a MCO or TPA and that any proposal from us ultimately would be different from such MCO or TPA.

Vendor Contact Information

Todd R. Cruse

FORBA, LLC

415 N Grand Ave.

Pueblo, CO 81003

Chief Development Officer

719-546-3333 work

719-546-3334 fax

tcruse@ddmktg.com

Kevin G. Reilly

FORBA, LLC

415 N Grand Ave.

Pueblo, CO 81003

Director Special Projects

719 546 3333 work

719 546 3334 fax

kreilly@ddmktg.com




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