Come hear the stories behind the legislative and legal battles won on your behalf by NJDA this year from the dedicated officers. This annual event is an opportunity to meet the NJDA Directors and General Counsel and to witness first hand their dedication to our members. You will never ask the question, “What is organized dentistry doing for me?” after this evening. It will provide you with the opportunity to learn how to use NJDA’s vast resources to get the most of your membership.
In addition, a special presentation to our deserving New Life Members will be featured. Life Members have been members for 30 consecutive years, or 40 years total. Tonight we honor our members who have reached this milestone in their careers, and acknowledge their contributions.

I would like to take this time to welcome our members back from a great holiday season. I would also like to wish everyone a great new year. My thoughts and prayers are with the Philippines after they endured a severe storm and I hope the support and aid continues to help them recover. My year as president at the society seems to be going by very fast. Several wonderful lectures were given in the first half of the season. The residents from Robert Wood Johnson and JFK are now setting up tables at our meetings and showing cases that they are completing at the residencies. Several students from Rutgers dental school have also recently attended our dinner meetings. This is a wonderful way to demonstrate how a dental society operates and for students to interact with private practice doctors. We hope that it will insure that our newest graduating doctors will embrace organized dentistry and keep membership in the local, state and national association at a high level.
At this time, on behalf of Middlesex County Dental Society, I would like to congratulate Dr. Maxine Feinberg for winning and becoming elected President-elect of the American Dental Association. I have seen her speak on several occasions and have spoken to her personally on several occasions. I can assure you that she has a tremendous passion for our profession and will accomplish a lot in this position. We know she has put in a great effort over the years and especially over the last year. Dr. Maxine Feinberg, Middlesex County Dental Society wishes you the very best.
The Middlesex County Dental Society Board is continuing to work very hard to improve membership benefits. I would also like to welcome some of our newest board members, Drs. Antoinette Tauk, Debra Brown and Elisa Marantz. It is the time of the volunteers that continues to help operate such a wonderful society.
This month, we hope you enjoy the NJDA officers’ visitation along with the introduction of the newest Life Members. For the remainder of the year we have several exciting lectures planned along with the April full day course (on Friday April 11th with internationally known endodontic authority, Dr. Clifford Ruddle). Again, I would like to wish all of our members and their families a wonderful, happy and healthy new year.

Attendance: Drs. Stein, Ashmen, Fernandes, Brunsden, Villa, Satwah, Silverstein, Mir-Madjlessi, Schambra, Rosen, Goldstein, Weiner, Simos, Vitale, Bernstein, Glickman, Kahn, Krantz, Modi, Brown and Marlene Glickman. Welcome special guests Dr. Marantz and Dr.Tauk.
Acceptance of 10/8/13 Minutes- vote unanimous.
President’s Report-David Stein
Review slate of officers for 2014-2015
Dr. Nainesh Desai-President
Dr. Alyssa Bernstein- President Elect
Dr. Devang Modi- Vice-President
Dr. Amit Vora-Treasurer
Dr. Genevieve Fernandes-Secretary
Educational Coordinator- To be selected
Treasurer’s Report-Amit Vora
See detailed report on page 3.
Secretary’s Report-Devang Modi
There is a House of Delegates meeting on Nov. 20, 1013 at 10am at the Pines Manor. NJDA had mailed the registration material to each individual delegate and alternate. Any and all members can attend. MCDS is allowed 14 votes. Only a delegate can vote unless, if any delegate cannot attend, an alternate can attend and vote in their place. The Nominations for Component Positions are due prior to March 21, 2014.
Educational Coordinator’s Report-Genevieve Fernandes
At our October general meeting we had about 80 members that attended. Dr. Vincent Ziccardi gave an excellent presentation on The Management of Trigeminal Nerve Injuries. A power point presentation of that CE course was e-mailed to those members in attendance. At our November general meeting our featured speaker will be Gerald Iacovano, CPA who will be speaking on:
“Year-End Tax Strategies Every Dentist Should Know.” There is no meeting in December and January is NJDA “Officers Night.”
ADA Delegate’s Report-Daniel Krantz
Not many contentious issues were brought up at the recent ADA meeting in New Orleans. Issues to be noted:
Dr. Maxine Feinberg (periodontist from Cranford, NJ) is our new ADA President Elect
Dr. Charles Norman (North Carolina) is the new President
Dr. Joshua Shenkin (Pedodontist from Maine) is our new Second Vice President
Dr. Jeffrey Cole (General Dentist from Delaware) is our new 4th district Trustee
No ADA dues increase
New Jersey has been allocated 2 more Delegates to the ADA House of Delegates.
Most of the rest of business was wordsmithing policy, and eliminating out-of-date resolutions.
The next ADA meeting (2014) is in San Antonio, Texas, (2015) in Washington, D.C., (2016) in Denver, Colorado.
NJDA Trustee’s Report-Mitch Weiner
No report. Next NJDA BOT meeting will follow the house of delegates meeting on 11/20.
Executive Secretary Report-Marlene Glickman
120 people are registered for the next OSHA seminar. Middlesex County Community College dental hygiene program would like to use the $1000 MCDS grant money to upgrade their ScanX.
NJDA Council Reports:
Annual Session-Nainesh Desai
As of October 22, 57 of 95 booths were sold and 6 of 32 tables. Tables are expected to sell out later, since NJDA did not offer a summer discount on the price ($900). Booths were discounted 10% ($1620 from$1800) through Labor Day.
NJDA members do not receive an honorarium. They do receive one hotel night, a small gift and access to the hospitality suite. A motion was made and passed: the Council will make a recommendation to the Board of Trustees as follows: Rules of the Board to be amended to allow member speakers to be eligible to receive an honorarium for speaking at annual session.
The Council reiterated its policy that speaker sponsors must also be exhibitors. This requirement will apply until exhibit space has sold out.
NJDA is moving away from individual CE courses throughout the year and beginning to offer smaller conferences, such as the New Dentist conference in March 2014 and Members’ Day in October 2014. Programming at these new, smaller conferences will tie into programming at annual session as feasible (ex., Endo, pt. 2).
The idea of adding a registration fee in 2014 was discussed at length, but it was ultimately decided not to impose a registration fee in 2014.
Give Kids A Smile-Cavan Brunsden
GKAS Day is on 2/7/14. 130 sites have registered so far. 2nd general meeting was held on 11/14 at NJDA.
Dental Benefits-Devang Modi, Jeff Chutskie
CODB meeting was held on November 13th. Dr. Scott Navarro from Delta Dental of NJ was invited as special guests to discuss the Affordable Care Act.
Mr. Art Meisel discussed a law suit against Maverest and that NJDA has submitted a petition for rule making against corporate practices. A full report will follow in the next newsletter and meeting.
Governmental Affairs-Mitch Weiner
Next meeting will be in early January. The results of last weeks’ statewide elections will not change things dramatically for us on the legislative front or significantly alter the balance of power in Trenton.
Membership-Genevieve Fernandes, Nima Mir-Madjlessi
We had our first membership council meeting on 11-5-2013. I want to thank Dr. R. Kahn, Dr. D. Modi and Dr. E. Glickman for attending the meeting. This was the first attempt to implement our membership outreach proposal.
Dr. Khan and Dr. Glickman shared with us their first impressions from the Rutgers Dental Students ASDA meeting. There definitely is a desire and interest in interacting with organized dentistry-NJDA and or MCDS. The students did not show a very positive or proactive impression from NJDA’s effort to date. We have reached the following conclusions:
A. Dental School
* We are going to try to establish a mentoring program where dental students will be able to visit different practices and get a first hand view of real life business and art of dentistry.
* We are going to have a residency forum where different specialist will answer questions about different residencies and specialties –not excluding GPR/AEGD.
* We will have a forum on debt management before and after graduation.
* We will have a “Life after dental school” discussion where topics such as private practice vs corporate dentistry, practice acquisition, associateship, etc. will be discussed.
* On November 26, Dr. Modi is going to present an overview of the application process for GPR and all of its intricacies.
B. Young(er) Dentist
* On December 17 we will have our first MCDS-Membership council program entitled: “HIPPA Training & the recent new updates made as of Sept.2013-Compliance &Operations Readiness.” It will be presented by Sal Petriello-HIPPA assist LLC
* We are working on developing a series of Treatment Planing roundtable discussions.
We will have our next membership council meeting on December 11 @7:00 pm at a location-TBA.
Peer Review-Sandy Goldstein
No new cases assigned or mediated last month.
Committee Reports:
Corporate Sponsorship-Ira Rosen
We will have between 4 - 6 corporate sponsors at each of our 6 scientific meetings and Bank of America will be a sponsor at our January NJDA Officers meeting. ALL members are encouraged to meet our sponsors and see what they have to offer us. We will continue to hold two raffles for $50 Visa gift cards at each scientific meeting for those members that visit all of the sponsors.
Mentor-Nima Mir-Madjlessi
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 Thursday November 14, 2013. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS COURSE WILL BE GIVEN AT THE ST. PETER’S HOSPITAL CONFERENCE ROOM.
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.
Budget and Finance-Ira Rosen
The 2014 MCDS budget was presented to the membership at the October general meeting and published in the November newsletter. It was presented for the second time at the November general meeting, voted upon and passed.
Dental Shadowing-Maha Kaga
Program is on-going.
Hygiene Study Club-Alyssa Bernstein
The Central New Jersey Dental Hygiene [CNJDH] Study Club met on Wednesday November 13, 2013 at the New Jersey Dental Association Building in North Brunswick. Dr. Richard Kahn lectured on “Scaling and Root Planing: The Hygienists role in Periodontal Therapy”. Two CEU credits were awarded for this seminar. The CNJDH study club is available to our hygienists as a Dentist-member benefit of MCDS. Please see the registration form in the newsletter to register for next year. Please contact Marlene Glickman, our Executive Secretary for MCDS, at 732-238-1255 for additional information and registration in advance for the program.
Old Business
Discussion to incorporate the MBA program into the mentor program.
New Business
The Middlesex County Dental Society has approved inviting Ashlee Apritam as the official student representative to the MCDS Board of Trustees meeting. Additionally the MCDS Board approved 5 senior students to attend each of our General Membership meetings held at the Pines Manor restaurant as our invited guests. We would like different seniors to attend these meetings so that everyone has this opportunity. If all interested seniors have attended at least one meeting then the same seniors can attend again. This Rutgers Senior Meeting program will be administrated by Dr. Sunny Satwah who is one of our MCDS members & also the President of the NJDA New Dentist Council. He is at Rutgers each week. Seniors must sign up no later than one week prior to the General Membership meeting.
Dr. Kahn made a motion, seconded by Bob A. to find out from the State Board if there are training requirements for RDAs to perform coronal polishing, fluoride and sealants.
Respectfully Submitted, Devang Modi, Secretary

General Membership Meeting Business

The 2014 budget was presented to the General Membership at the 11/19/2013 general meeting for approval. The budget passed with unanimous consent.

MCDS Newsletter Online

To receive the newsletter electronically in lieu of receiving a printed copy, please visit our web site, at www.MCDSofNJ.org.
Click on the “Member” link, then the “Of Current Interest” Link. By registering for this, you will be able to view the newsletter about a week before it would get to you in the mail, and this will also be saving us money.

Peer Review

Peer review is an alternative dispute resolution mechanism which addresses differences that may arise between a patient and dentist or a dentist and third party payer. Understanding that peer review is a wonderful tool to resolve disputes between patient and dentist, it is still in our best interest to keep these cases to a minimum. Over the past several years we have seen an increase in peer review cases in our state. The last few cases that have been presented to our committee potentially could have been avoided with better communication between dentist and patient. Try to be empathetic to your patient. Listen carefully and if possible resolve your differences at your office. When a case goes to the peer review committee, complete and legible records are a must. Please record all conversations you have with the patient, and document all your treatment in depth. Your clinical notes must include all aspects of your treatment i.e. A diagnosis as to why the procedure is being done, type of anesthetic used, dosage of anesthetic, how it was administered, materials used in the procedure, any prescriptions for medications, specialist referrals, etc. In the treatment planning section of your notes, it is required that all potential treatment plans and the fee range for each treatment plan is clearly recorded. Note any potential treatment complications that may have been discussed with the patients. Radiographs must be of diagnostic quality and pre-operative photographs can often help. It is important to know that if you have three peer review cases in one year, four in two years, or five in three years you can be referred to the State Board of Dentistry for review.

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