News

It was a normal Thursday morning, the end of a busy week. My team and I had just finished our morning huddle where we go over the schedule, talk about any specific issues regarding a patient or a planned procedure, share a prayer for the day, and then “break” to go about facilitating our very packed schedule. This is our daily routine and I ... [continue reading]

Regular readers of this column know that non-compete clauses are usually included in dentist employment contracts, and, as I have written in previous columns, employment contracts are far more common in dentistry today than in the past. Many young dentists enter their careers as employees when they graduate from dental school. Some of them will ... [continue reading]

With the passage of the biennial budget, there has been some conversation in the news regarding unclaimed funds in Ohio. Further, I have been contacted by a few dental offices who have been in contact with the Ohio Department of Commerce regarding unclaimed funds audits. With these two instances it seems like now would be an opportune time to have ... [continue reading]

The ADA and the Forsyth Institute Partnership You may have noticed recent references to the ADA Forsyth Institute (AFI) in ADA communications. I’d like to take a moment to share more about AFI, and our future goals for this partnership. AFI – a century-old leader in dental research – now partners with the ADA to advance oral health ... [continue reading]

Last month, this column focused on the ODA’s efforts through the Medicaid Working Group to help individual ODA member dentists address Medicaid related problems that they are unable to resolve on their own. This month’s column will cover how the ODA helps individual member dentists deal with privately funded dental insurance related ... [continue reading]

As I sit in my office surrounded by textbooks that will soon seem quaint and technology that’s evolving faster than our curriculum committees can keep pace, I’m struck by a fundamental question facing our profession: Are we writing the script for dentistry’s future, or are we simply casting the familiar actors in a play we’ve been ... [continue reading]

Close to 50 years ago, I had my first run in with the dental CE police as a young licensee in Iowa. The Iowa Dental Board had instituted a CE requirement, very rudimentary and reasonable in quantity, but new to dentistry in those days. They gave new graduates a two-year reprieve based on the freshness of their education. I tried to make the logic ... [continue reading]

At the 2025 ODA Day at the Statehouse, about 80 dentists and 30 dental students met with their state senators and representatives on May ... [continue reading]

Increasing the number of dental assistants and hygienists in the workforce is a top priority for the Ohio Dental Association, and the dentists who volunteer on the ODA’s Executive Committee and Dental Education and Licensure Committee have taken a number of steps over the past several years to address the issue. The ODA has improved and ... [continue reading]

The 135th General Assembly enacted legislation, Senate Bill 40, in 2024 that adds common sense fairness back to the dental insurance system. This new law prohibits dental insurance companies from dictating fees for services that the insurers do not even cover. Any new contracts entered into from Jan. 1, 2025 on, must be compliant with the new ... [continue reading]