Author: Suhani Patel

Give Kids A Smile (GKAS) registration is available in October. Events registered by Nov. 15 will qualify for free products to give to kids at events and dental supplies to provide screenings, cleanings, fluoride varnish and sealants. GKAS activities include free dental care and/or free oral health education for children. Many dental offices ... [continue reading]

Dental insurance plans are now dictating fees for dental services that the insurance company does not even cover for enrollees. This practice is fundamentally unfair and unnecessarily interferes with the patient-dentist relationship. The Ohio Dental Association supports the effort to stop this unfair practice and asks members of the General ... [continue reading]

A call for nominations is now extended for dentist board member positions on the Ohio State Dental Board. The Ohio Dental Association has the opportunity to recommend nominees to the Governor of Ohio for possible dentist board member openings on the Ohio State Dental Board (OSDB), which may be vacant in April 2022. The board member positions ... [continue reading]

The Ohio Dental Association seeks members to fill potential upcoming at-large positions on ODA councils. The ODA is seeking nominations for at-large positions on the association’s Council on Dental Care Programs and Dental Practice and the Council on Membership Services. Nominations for these at-large council positions are open to all ODA ... [continue reading]

ENROLL IN THE ODA HEALTH BENEFITS PLAN Open enrollment for the ODA’s health benefits plan, the ODA Wellness Trust, is available from Oct. 15 through Nov. 15. The ODA Wellness Trust is available exclusively to ODA members and their staff and features a more extensive provider network than most individual health insurance plans. It also has a ... [continue reading]

About 20 years ago, after giving a lecture to rising third year dental students on caries risk assessment, a clearly agitated student approached me and expressed that much of what I had said in the class, particularly that just brushing your teeth had no anti-caries benefit, went against everything he had been taught. That lecture was early in the ... [continue reading]

As I write this, the wheels are turning in Washington to create a dental benefit in Medicare Part B. There is no doubt that there are access issues regarding dental care for senior citizens in the country. What is open for debate is how to address those issues. Unfortunately, that discussion is currently proceeding in the worst possible place for ... [continue reading]

The Ohio Dental Association has written Cigna Dental to express its concerns with a recent decision by Cigna to substantially reduce network dentists’ reimbursement. The ODA’s action is in response to a number of ODA member dentists who contacted the ODA after receiving a letter from Cigna Dental that it would begin utilizing a new fee ... [continue reading]

The technological world that we live in continues to evolve almost daily. One area in which technology has evolved immensely in the last 20 years is in the world of computers and especially the internet. At the turn of the century, the idea that the vast majority of dental offices would have their own website would have sounded far-fetched. ... [continue reading]

This year (2021) is the final year of the licensing biennium for dentists in Ohio so I thought I would review the CE rules in this month’s column. As you probably know, dentists are required to complete 40 hours of Ohio State Dental Board (OSDB)-accepted CE every two years in order to renew their licenses. Occasionally, I get asked by ... [continue reading]