The North Carolina Senate recently upheld Senate Bill 655, which would require the North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners to examine all business contracts entered into by dental practices in their state.

No other state in the union has implemented such restrictions on dental practice management, or sought such inclusive authority over how dentists manage their business.

Talk about the far-reaching arm of the government!

As reported by Dr. Clifton Cameron in the Fay Observer –

“As a practicing dentist in Fayetteville, I know how this legislation will impact dentistry in North Carolina.

When my partner and I established our practice in 2008, we quickly realized dental school taught us much about clinical care, but little about running a business. And the dental industry, much like the rest of the health care industry, is changing and becoming more complex.

So like many small-business owners, we looked to outside companies to help finance the practice, manage billing, handle payroll, file insurance and execute other administrative tasks. The arrangement helped our dental practice operate so efficiently that we can charge lower rates and accept dental insurance from patients.

Instead of helping foster lower fees for patients and wider insurance acceptance, Senate Bill 655 would require dentists to personally handle all the administrative tasks of their practices.

The bill would forbid dentists from taking advantage of the types of business services that millions of small businesses use. Many dentists like me would be forced to spend less time on patient care and more time on managing the complexities of a modern dental practice.

Senate Bill 655 would give the Dental Board complete control of how dentists in North Carolina run their practices so they can keep fees charged to patients artificially high and insurance acceptance artificially low.”

The North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners position on on Management Agreements with dental practices is as follows:

“The Board has become increasingly concerned about the expanding scope and nature of management company services and agreements, and their impact on the control of dental practices by the licensed dentists.

The bundled services offered by management companies typically involve some combination of (1) administrative management services; and (2) financial management services.

Based on its knowledge of the operations of dental practices, and after reviewing management arrangements with dental practices for almost ten (10) years, the Board has identified features of management arrangements which it has determined to be highly likely to create a situation where the ownership, management, supervision or control of a dental practice is impermissibly conveyed to an unlicensed person or organization because either separately or when bundled, those features interfere with the licensed dentists’ professional decision-making and their exercise of clinical skill, judgment and supervision in the dental practice.”

Have you read about this story? What are your thoughts about the government and a State Board of Dental Examiners dictating how you administrate your dental practice?

We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this subject.

For more on this story see: Op-ed: Legislation would restrict dentistry in the state and the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners position at www.ncdentalboard.org (opens in a pdf file).