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As we gather this month to honor our respective staffs for their contribution to our success, we should reflect on how each separate staff person is so vital to the practice as a whole. Any practitioner who forgets the vital function of a staff person is clearly reminded of it when he/she calls in sick and we are left to perform his/her functions on top of our treatment duties.
In an age where loyalty to an employer in the marketplace is becoming nonexistent, many of us are blessed with employees who will go to the end of the earth for us because they believe in us and we have made them feel a vital part of our business. For these staff members who show unyielding loyalty to us during inevitable hard times, this night of tribute is deserving. As our practices are extensions of ourselves, so too are our staffs extensions of our families. There is no doubt that they see sides of us only our immediate family members know about.
We hope that you make every effort to honor your staff members by attending this special event.
As I sit down to write my last message as President of MCDS, I cannot believe how fast this year has gone by. I can remember sitting down to write my first president’s message not too long ago. It is amazing how quickly time goes by. MCDS had another great year in which we had 3 full day speakers, bringing top-notch continuing education to our membership. I would like to start by giving a special thanks to Dr. Nainesh Desai, who did an outstanding job as our educational coordinator this year. Without him, this past year for MCDS would not have been nearly as successful. I would also like to thank Dr. Mark Vitale, who always helped me and offered me advice, whenever it was needed. I also would like to give a big thank you to the whole Board of Trustees at MCDS. For those of you who do not know, the MCDS Board of Trustees meets on the 2nd Tuesday of every month for 8 months of the year. This is where all of the planning and discussion takes place that makes our organization operate so efficiently. The members of the Board of Trustees volunteer their time to make sure that MCDS is well represented throughout the state of New Jersey, when any dental or political issue arises. All of the people on the Board of Trustees take time out of their busy schedules to attend meetings and manage our programs. I don’t think that it is done enough, but they should ALL be commended. Looking to next year, MCDS has another exciting year planned. As of the printing of this newsletter, two full day continuing education courses have been confirmed. Dr. Avishai Sadan will present in the fall of 2010 and Dr. Terry Tanaka will present in the spring of 2011. This program was put together under the supervision of our President-Elect, Maya Prabhu. Maya’s preparation for next year has been outstanding and I know she will continue to lead our group in the right direction. In closing, I would like to thank everyone in our organization for his or her support during the past year. As I said at the beginning of this message, the time has flown by and I think that the support and help from everyone at MCDS, has had a big part to play in that. Don’t forget we have one more event to bring our year to a close, “Staff Night,” and I can’t think of a better place to celebrate another great year at MCDS. I hope to see everyone there!!
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-04/13/2010-
-04/13/2010-
Attendance: Bernstein, Brunsden, Cicalese, Desai, Galkin, Goldstein , Mir Madjlessi, Modi, Prabhu, Rizzi, Savage, Schambra, Silverstein, Stein, Villa, Vora, Weiner, Marlene Glickman
Acceptance of Minutes-vote unanimous.
President’s Report-Scott Galkin
Our March full day course given by Char Sweeney, went over extremely well. We had over 90 attendees and the sponsors appeared to be extremely happy. I personally heard from multiple sponsors on how happy they were with our group and their opportunity to sponsor our courses.
Treasurer’s Report-David Stein
See full report on page 3.
NJDA Trustee’s Report-Nancy Villa
MCDS member Stephen H. Kaplan passed away in February. He practiced dentistry for 42 years in Colonia. He organized the dental program in the Woodbridge Township School System.
NJDA will update its collection of educational presentation materials from the current VHS tapes to DVDs. These materials will be available for members to borrow.
Tricia DeCotiis reported on the NJDA Dental Conference & Expo. There are 15 booths left to sell. There are nine companies participating in the High Tec Vendor Fair. Henry Schein’s glass classroom has initiated a lot of interest. Patterson has come back to the exhibit floor because they heard about Schein and Benco’s sponsorship. The Breakfast & Learn and Lunch and Learn will be on the exhibit floor this year. The registration books are out and online registration is open. The deadline date for registration is May 7th. The trustees were reminded to have their component members hold orders for their vendors until the show and to put articles in their component newsletter to promote the show. The council continues to seek out good speakers for 2011.
Eric Elmore – NJDA’s Partners Program for 2010 continues to grow. In the Gold category, we have Colgate, Delta Dental and Henry Schein; the silver category has one, HealthCard Systems; TekCollect, Benco are Bronze and TDIC AND Mid-Atlantic are Pearl Partners. Last year we raised $58,000 in revenue; this year we raised $86,000.
After the April 28th Board meeting we will again host our Annual Business Partner Wine & Cheese Reception. This is a great opportunity for developing future partners. Mr. Elmore asked the Board members to go back to their respective components and encourage their component chairs to attend this meeting between 3:00-5:00 pm on 4/28 as many of these companies are looking for sponsorship opportunities at the component level.
The PEW Report was released last month wherein New Jersey scored an “F” on its 8 point criteria. Both Art Meisel and Sid Whitman were asked to appear on NJN News where they pointed out that the report was in error pertaining to Medicaid reimbursement and reported on what NJDA dentists are doing for the underserved. This can be viewed on the NJN News website in its news archives
Bank of American is planning to present two programs off-site that will be made available to NJDA members at no cost. One program will be directed to New Dentists and the other to those members transitioning into retirement.
Eric Elmore -- Council on Dental Education has been working on getting heads of dental assistant chairs to meet with high school guidance counselors to find out why NJDA scholarships are not being used. We have 4 $500 scholarships available and we didn’t get 4 applications.
Dental Benefit Programs & Peer Review – Ms. Mary Moskal
Several states have already filed suit to challenge the constitutionality of the provision that requires all Americans to purchase health insurance.
Finally, perhaps due to the economy, the number of peer review complaints is increasing, but some of the complaints do not even qualify for peer review as they are blatant fee disputes.
Dr. Steven R. Fink reported that he will be presenting a Presidential Award to Dr. Walter Chinoy during Annual Session. He added that he will be presenting the Sy Symanski Award to a very deserving member who has given more than 50 years of outstanding service to the Association, the profession and to the community and his component: Dr. Robert J. Isaacson.
Treasurer’s Report – Dr. Robert Giantomas
Mr. Stan Orenstein reported that we received a clean audit from our auditors.
NJDA will start using Healthcard to process credit card payments for dues.
NJDA Council Reports:
Council on Annual Session-Nainesh Desai
I had written before: “Change is hard, but change is here and is here to stay”. The Garden State Dental Conference and Expo 2010 (previously called the NJDA Annual Session) is a weekend event at The Trump Taj Mahal (Atlantic City, NJ) and will be held on June11-13, 2010. (FRI-SUN).
Other changes involve having a Glass Classroom, a Product-Demo Classroom and a High-Tech Vendor Fair on the Exhibit Floor with some free continuing education. The exhibit floor will also have an onsite Café and the Cyber Pavilion (like last year) that will now allow the attending dentists to print their CE credits obtianed at the conference. There will be a joint reception hosted by MCDS, Temple University and UMDNJ-NJDS for their alumni on Friday, June 11th, 2010. On that same Friday and following Saturday, there will be drawings on the Exhibit Floor during the welcome reception with prizes totaling $1,500. Once again, the Garden State Dental Conference & Expo is partnering with the New Jersey Dental Assistants’ Association and the New Jersey Dental Hygienists’ Association to provide a conference for the entire dental team.
Simultaneously, preparations are going on for the 2011 and 2012 meetings to be held at the Ocean Place Resort in Long Branch, NJ. In 2011, Dr Carl Misch will be the feature speaker presenting a full-day course on June 24th, 2011, with sponsorship from BioHorizons. Come join us to learn and have fun with your staff, friends and family at the all new Garden State Dental Conference & Expo.
Governmental Affairs-Mitch Weiner
• Fair Debt Collection Act- Proposed legislation that is anti-small business in regards to putting up barriers that will make collection of overdue accounts receivable more difficult. NJDA feels that 3rd party debt collectors should be the main focus of this legislation, NOT small businesses.
• Governor Christie Budget- Medicaid Ortho is slated for elimination in the governor’s new budget but other adult dental Medicaid services are still alive as of this writing.
• Coalitions are developing between NJDA and other professional societies to push for legislation that will repeal the Cosmetic Services Tax and protect our interests in Out of Network Billing Legislation.
Public Affairs Projects:
• Oral Health Awareness Week will be held in June.
• Oral Cancer Screenings will be held statewide in April.
• Oral Health Coalition Summit will be held in September.
• Eric Elmore is going around the state recruiting for next years Give Kids a Smile
Dental Benefits-Devang Modi
• There were 29 CRP’s during the 1st quarter of 2010. Metlife (10) and Aetna (5) led the way with majority of the cases for refund request by the insurance carrier (13), denied claims (4) and others. I will bring the report tonight if anyone wants more specifics.
• Metlife plans to outsource its claims and pre-authorization processing to India. If approved or paid- NO problem. If denied or payment is reduced- it will be reviewed by a US Dentist.
• By now most of you should have received a supplemental payment from Delta because of the problems in calculating the MAC for Delta Premier patients. A letter was sent along with the check with a user ID and then a second letter with a password. You can go online and print a copy of the calculations used to pay you. You should just post this as a supplemental payment and do not need to re-adust any fees previously posted. Delta will also directly send a payment to its member if required. We do not have to worry about refunding a patient.
Also, if a patient has 2 insurances and delta is the secondary carrier, although the primary insurance paid in full and no payment is due from Delta; it is RECOMMENDED but NOT REQUIRED that you still submit a claim to them. The money not paid by Delta goes into a Coordination of benefits reserve.
• There was discussion on application of Fluoride (D1203/ D1204) versus flouride varnish (D1206) on patients. You should use D1203 when using topical fluoride or varnish on children and D1204 on adults. However when you use VARNISH on a moderate to high caries risk patient use CDT code D1206.
• There was discussion on Aetna’s EOB language stating a procedure was “not resonable” for a post and core (D2954) and an MOD composite done (D2393) on the same day for the same tooth. The dentist placed a composite instead of a core after the post placement because the patient was NOT going to do a crown.
• We also reviewed benefit limitations for vertical bitewings. Aetna will allow for vertical bitewings 1 time/ 36 months and consider it separate from a FMS. Delta on the other hand will add up the vertical bitewing fees and compare them to the FMS or other Xrays being paid out.
• There is a website, healthcarebluebook.com, that a provider or consumer can go to, enter the zip code for your area, and find out what a dental procedure should cost or be charged.
• A new dental code was accepted by the ADA and will appear in the January 2011 CDT. It will be D59XX (to be finalized by CRC) for maintenance and cleaning of a maxillofacial prosthesis (NOT A REMOVABLE PROSTHESIS- like dentures or partials).
• Art Meisel sent a letter to the PEW Children’s Dental Director Shelly Gehshan to issue a correction for the PEW report study which you all received about a month ago. This is where NJ received an “F” grade in several benchmark catagories.
• Art has also filed a suit against Metlife and Horizon BXBS regarding non-covered services and assignment of benefits. The assignment of benefits law was passed and is applicable to those Dentist or specialist who submit clains to medical insurance carrier for 3rd molar ext’s, sleep apnea, etc...
• Dr. Vitale on behalf of NJDA, CODB sent a letter to all residency program directors in NJ inviting their residents to attend the 2010 Garden State and Expo in Atlantic City. The agenda was finalized and will include Dr. Art Belinker giving the same course a last year with a panel of dentist in the morning. The afternoon session will include Art Meisel speaking about the legality of insurance contracts; Dr. David Petigrew speaking about dental coding which cause problems and insurance company contracts; and Dr. Vitale speaking about coordination of benefits. Each session will allow for 10-15 minute question and answer afterwards. All are encouraged to attend.
•Dr Pettigrew is also presenting a lecture on April 28, 2010 in paramus on “how to be a dental consultant.”
• Prudential under Group Dental Services- Coventry is trying to get back into the dental insurance carrier business.
• An invitation was extended to newly elected Assemblyman Robert Schroeder to attend the NJDA CODB meeting to better inform him about the uniqueness of dental insurance and the difference from medical insurance. He could NOT attend and we will try to get him for the June meeting.
• Talks are under way to get someone from Aetna and Scott Navarro from Delta at a later meeting.
• NJ was awarded 11.4 million dollars for electronic health records. We are trying to find out if dentist would have any access to this $$$.
• Dr. Poonam Alaigh was sworn in as Health and Senior services Commissioner. She was serving as the executive medical director for Horizon BXBS.
Peer Review-Sandy Goldstein
There were no new cases mediated during March 2010. There was one case where the patient withdrew the complaint.
Committee Reports:
Mentor-Amit Vora/Nima MirMadjlessi/Ethan Glickman
Our bi-annual OSHA program that satisfies the OSHA standard on Occupational Exposure to Blood Borne Pathogens, which is required annually for dentists and staff, will be given on June 3, 2010 at St. Peter’s Medical Center, New Brunswick.
Dr. Sandy Goldstein presented the mentor program on April 8, 2010. He spoke about: “Peer Review: The Good, Bad and Ugly” at NJDA Headquarters in North Brunswick. 15 members and staff attended the course.
Two CEU credits are awarded to the Dentists & staff members attending these 2-hour seminars. These seminars are available to our members & staff for $25/pp as a member benefit of MCDS.
A very big “Thank You” to Dr. Joe Fertig, Director of Dental Services - St. Peter’s Medical Center, for arranging all our room accommodations for the MCDS-OSHA-Mentor programs at St. Peter’s Medical Center in New Brunswick.
Please see the insert in this newsletter for additional information and registration for the Mentor/OSHA program.
Dental Hygiene Study Club-Alyssa Bernstein
The Central New Jersey Dental Hygiene [CNJDH] Study Club met on Wednesday March 10 ,2010 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Rte 27 South, Edison NJ and was sponsored by the Middlesex County Dental Society. The speakers were Drs. Mary Powderly and Catherine Cimini speaking on hormones, menopause and their effects on the mouth and body.
Two CEU credits were awarded to the 27 Hygienists that attend this meeting. The next CNJDH meeting will be on Wednesday May 5, 2010 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Edison. The speaker will be Dr. Lederman discussing Oral Lesions. Two CEU credits will be awarded for this seminar.
This CNJDH study club is available to our hygienists as a Dentist-member benefit of MCDS.
Please contact Marlene Glickman, our Exec.Sect’y for MCDS, at # 732-238-1255 for additional information and registration in advance for the program. Thank you.
New Business
The General Meeting Lectures for 2010-2011 have been finalized:
Tuesday Night General Meetings
• September 21, 2010 - Dr. Scott Ganz - Prosthodontics
• October 19, 2010 - Dr. Avishai Sadan - Comprehensive Esthetic Dentistry
• November 16, 2010 - Dr. Michael Messing - TMD Screening
• January 18, 2011 - NJDA Officer’s Night
• February 15, 2011 - Ann Kiernan, esq. - Personnel Issues
• March 12, 2011 - Dr. David Sirois - Oral Dermatology
• April 19, 2011 - Dr. Frank Setzer - Treatment Planning and Endo Strategies
• May 17, 2011 - Staff Night
Full Day Lectures
• October 20, 2010 - Dr. Avishai Sadan - Comprehensive Esthetic Dentistry from Risk Assessment to Recipe for Success
• April 8, 2011 (Friday) - Dr. Terry Tanaka - Treatment Planning Guidelines for Restorative and Prosthodontic Problems
Respectfully Submitted, Robert Silverstein for Constantine Simos, Secretary
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Dr. David Stein
March 31, 2010
| 3/31/09 | 2/28/10 | 3/31/10 | |
| Checking $26,964.75 $13,080.91 $22,654.54 | |||
| Savings | $11,312.24 | $35,752.59 | $35,775.36 |
| CD (2% matures 12/10/09) | |||
| $25,000.00 | $0(Closed) $0 | ||
| PayPal $ 3,384.12 $ 5,086.48 $ 7,745.23 | |||
| TOTAL: | $66,661.11 | $53,919.98 | $66,175.13 |
| P&L STATEMENT CHECKING ACCOUNT | |||
| (3/1/10-3/31/10) | |||
| INCOME | |||
| CONT. EDUC.-INC | 2,250.00 | ||
| CORP SPON-C.ED | 8,500.00 | ||
| CORP SPON-MTNGS | 600 | ||
| DUES | 14,717.50 | ||
| INTEREST | 1.41 | ||
| MENTOR COMM-INC | 375 | ||
| TOTAL INCOME | 26,443.91 | ||
| EXPENSES | |||
| LECTURE FEES | 8,750.00 | ||
| DINNER MEETINGS | 3,469.64 | ||
| DONATIONS | 1,825.25 | ||
| EXEC COMM DINNER | 598.98 | ||
| EXECUTIVE SECRETARY | 1,225.00 | ||
| NEWSLETTER | 813.92 | ||
| TELEPHONE | 187.49 | ||
| TOTAL EXPENSES | 16,870.28 | ||
| OVERALL TOTAL | 9,573.63 | ||
| P&L SAVINGS ACCOUNT | |||
| (3/1/10-3/31/10) | |||
| INTEREST INCOME | 22.77 | ||
| OVERALL TOTAL | 22.77 | ||
| P&L PAYPAL MONEY MARKET | |||
| (3/1/10-3/31/10) | |||
| CONT EDUC INC | 2,561.95 | ||
| MENTOR COMM INC | 96.8 | ||
| OVERALL TOTAL | 2,658.75 | ||
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