Attendance: Bloom, Chustckie, Clemente, Fahsbender, Fertig, Glickman, Huberman, Kahn, Krantz, Leizer, Livanos, Perlmutter, Rosen, Schambra, Silverstein, Weiner,

Acceptance of Minutes –3/14/00-vote unanimous.

President’s Report-M. Schambra
• The IRS has granted a “not-for-profit” status for MCDS.
• The Board telephone list has been updated and will be distributed. Dr. Silverstein will post it on the MCDS website.
• The new mailing address for MCDS is P.O. Box 7026, East Brunswick, NJ 08816. All correspondence, including course registration, will be directed to this address.
• In view of the fact that we now have an executive secretary, the MCDS phone service was reviewed. After researching the various options, it appears to be more convenient and cost effective to maintain a phone line in the secretary’s residence. A motion was made to proceed with installation of the phone line. Discussion followed. Vote unanimous. The phone company will announce the new phone number when the old number is called.
• The House of Delegates meeting is Wednesday, May 10, 2000 at the Pines Manor. All NJDA delegates and alternate delegates that are able to attend are urged to RSVP to Dr. Schambra.
Website-R. Silverstein
Registration forms are printable from the MCDS website for all courses.
NJDA Council Reports:
NJDA Board of Trustees-D. Krantz
• Lynn Foley resigned as Director, Membership & Communications
• A resolution was made and passed that NJDA non-members will be issued “exhibit hall only” passes for the Annual Session.
• A resolution was made to pursue a statute of limitations for the National Practitioners Data Bank. The ADA recently had an article about this topic in their newsletter, so apparently, action is being taken at the national level.
• The NJDA building is in need of numerous repairs. They will have an engineer evaluate the entire building to determine how much needs to be allocated for repairs.
Peer Review-J. Fahsbender
Two out of county cases were brought up for review and all were resolved through mediation.
MCDS Committee Reports:
Corporate Sponsorship-J. Chustckie
Americus Dental Lab was pleased with the response they had at the last meeting. They faxed a proposed sponsorship package which included a half page ad for a year, a table at every dinner meeting, and sponsorship of the fall all-day continuing education course totaling approximately $5,000.
Mentor- E. Glickman
• The Perio-Chip course will be offered on 5/25/00 and the Atridox course will be on 6-1-00. Both courses will offer new information on periodontal treatments.
• The OSHA Blood-Borne Pathogens Annual Certification course will be 6-22-00.
• All courses will have 2 CEU’s and will be held at St. Peter’s hospital. Registration is at 6pm and the course is 7-9pm. Information and registration forms will be in the newsletter.
Old Business
The Rules of the Board will be compiled over the summer to be presented in the fall.
New Business
A motion was made to nominate Peter Clemente to continue as NJDA’s representative to the UMDNJ Foundation. Vote unanimous.

Respectfully submitted,
Bruce A. Huberman, DMD
Secretary

State Board
The Board announced that the Proposed regulation on dental decisions/consultants had been cleared for publication in the NJ Register. Any consultant who makes a dental decision as defined in the proposed rule must be licensed in New Jersey. In addition, the consultant must prepare a written record with his name, address, and telephone number. This must be provided to the patient or the treating dentist at their request. The consultant must show justification that a clinical exam was not warranted, if not conducted. Failure to comply is possible misconduct. The proposed regulation is expected to be published in about two months. There will be a 30 day comment period, after which the State Board will make a determination.
Medicaid Fee Increases
Staff reported that the state has approved an additional $6.4 million for the upcoming budget year to increase fees in the Medicaid dental fee-for-service program administered by Unisys. Although the increase will not directly affect the fees paid by the various Medicaid HMOs with whom the state contracts, the Committee believes the HMOs will, of necessity, increase these rates also.
Fluoridation
Arthur Meisel met with Commissioner Grant on fluoridation. In discussing the issue of fluoridation with the Department of Health and Sr. Services, they agree that fluoridation of the water supply is important for the public dental health but when asked to support it, their answer is that they will not touch it. It is a political issue.
Employment Agreement
The NJDA Board approved a new four year employment agreement with Arthur Meisel, who will continue to serve as Executive Director and General Counsel. The agreement runs to December 31, 2004.

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•MCDS reduced our dues portion $13 to make up for the $13 dues increase this year by the ADA, therefore giving their members no net dues increase for 2000. A combination of non-dues income (corporate sponsorship/advertising), savings from printing the newsletter in-house, and continued fiscal restraint by the MCDS Board has enabled us to provide our members with this benefit.

•Voluntary contributions from NJDA Members are strongly encouraged to support NJDA’s sponsorship of the Special Olympics. This is a worthwhile cause that is also providing member dentists with a targeted PR marketing campaign.

•MBNA has a credit card endorsed by NJDA that provides royalties (non-dues income) to NJDA based on usage.

I am your representative to the Council on Dental Benefits (CDB). What do all these NJDA councils do anyway? I would like to give you some idea of what we do, and in future columns I will discuss the other councils.
The NJDA bylaws define our mission as follows:
To formulate, recommend policies, study, evaluate, disseminate, and to assist components and other agencies in developing programs for the planning, administration and financing of Dental Benefit Programs. We used to be called the Council on Dental Care, but the new name fits our mission better.
To fulfill our mandate, we solicit information from member doctors, dental benefit plans (“insurance companies”), other dental organizations (ADA, other State Components), governmental agencies (local, state and federal), and the media. We keep track of legislation and pending legislation and try to keep the legislators appraised of dentistry’s concerns through our lobbying efforts (Timothy Clark from NJDA). We keep track of existing laws and regulations and have initiated lawsuits to make sure governmental agencies are in compliance with their own laws and regulations. The latter action is performed by the NJDA Executive Director and Counsel, Art Meisel, with our input. We have represented dentists in their disputes with benefit plans. If we feel the doctor is right, the weight and muscle of the NJDA usually gets action where a private doctor would just be ignored. We have met with some of the largest dental insurance carriers and, in some cases, effected policy changes to your benefit. The CDB also accumulates statistics of improper actions by benefit plans. Such actions include (but are not limited to) non payment, lost claims, lost x-rays, and improper consultant review. We get these statistics from the Third Party Encounter forms I talk about at meetings. We use the statistics to keep you appraised of potential pitfalls with some plans and also to give feedback to the plans so they can adjust any irregularities and deficiencies. Heading the present “list” with the most complaints is Aetna, with the Blues in second (maybe the Blues should try harder?).

Recently we have been giving input to the State Board of Dentistry, to encourage them to regulate consultants. We feel that a review by a consultant is the Practice of Dentistry and therefore should be accountable to the State Board. After all, we are ultimately responsible to the State Board for any Dental Practice actions we take or do not take.
Recent examples of business transacted at meetings include a letter from NJDA to the Department of Banking and Insurance (DOBI) stating our position in regard to new PIP regulations. The new regulations want to require doctors to inform the insurance companies after the accident “as soon as possible” (like within 30 days) of any and all injuries and the total claim. There was no consideration given to injuries discovered months after the accident. This doesn’t only include TMJ and Head and Neck Pain, but could also include a traumatized tooth which doesn’t blow up until months after the trauma. Our function here is to give necessary information to the clueless regulators and to follow the proposed regulations until they become official. Another instance was an insurance company denying benefits for a fixed bridge, and only allowing for a removable bridge under their “least costly alternative provision”, when only two consecutive teeth were the only missing teeth.
Council meetings are scheduled about every six weeks. Two weeks before each meeting we receive a packet of material germane to the meeting. This includes copies of correspondence between NJDA, insurance companies and doctors, copies of EOB’s (explanation of benefits), statistics and articles. The meetings begin at 9:30 AM and usually extend to about 3:00 PM with a break for lunch. To answer the question I posed at the beginning: Yes, there is a free lunch.
All of the opinions expressed are my own; however I try to base them on current facts and information. My primary source of information is CDT-3/2000, American Dental Association, 1999.
Daniel B. Krantz, DDS
Middlesex Representative to Council on Dental Benefits