Small businesses, including dental practices in California, with at least one employee who utilizes California’s Paid Family Leave program benefits on or after June 1, 2022, are eligible to apply online for grants up to $2,000 per employee on the leave. The grant can be used to offset the increased costs associated with employees who are on leave. Such costs might include hiring new staff or training existing staff to cover the duties of the employee on leave.

Previous CDPH guidance directed fully vaccinated individuals in high-risk settings to be tested on day five after a close-contact exposure with COVID-19. Under the updated guidance, vaccinated and boosted individuals in high-risk settings, which include dental offices, should test immediately after the close contact and then three to five days after the contact with day zero being the date of the contact. The should also isolate for at least five days if the COVID-19 test is positive or if symptoms start.

Dentists and other health care providers who received federal Provider Relief Fund payments during period 3 ― Jan. 1-June 30, 2021 ― are required to use those funds on eligible pandemic-related expenses by June 30, 2022. 

 

Providers must then report the use of those funds between July 1 and Sept. 30, 2022, if the payments exceeded $10,000. Providers will report the use of their period-3 funds through the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration’s PRF reporting portal. Most dentists who applied for and received PRF payments received them during periods 3 and 4. The portal will not open for period-3 reporting until July 1. Period-4 reporting will open in January 2023.

As chair of the Legislative Committee for the California Association of Orthodontists, I am actively involved in educating lawmakers on the harmful outcomes that can be associated with non-doctor directed movement of teeth. As a fellow dentist in California, I share the concerns I hear voiced from colleagues about how often direct-to-consumer aligner cases are not diagnosed properly or are not overseen to ensure that treatment is progressing as expected, and the lack of informed consent for patients.

 

As we see patients who have experienced outcomes that do not meet their expectations or, even more troubling, outcomes that are actually worse than the problems they began treatment to address, we need your help to ensure adequate protections are enacted to prevent this type of patient harm. There are two simple ways we can make a difference:

 

1. Encourage your patient to report their treatment experiences to the Dental Board of California using the complaint form found here

2. Report your assessment of the patient encounter using the BRIEF form (it will take you less than 5 minutes) found here

 

The passage of future patient protection legislation is likely contingent upon us having data to substantiate how and how many DTC aligner patients are being affected, so participation from ALL dental professionals—generalists and specialists alike—is needed in order to provide an accurate and comprehensive picture. Please commit now to being part of this process. Our collective success depends upon YOU!

 

Dr. Jeffrey Kwong, DDS, MS

Dental-office staff and patients must continue to wear face masks, dental offices must continue to screen patients for COVID-19 prior to their appointments, and personnel involved in aerosol-generating procedures should continue to wear an N95 or N95-equivalent respirator when involved in aerosol-generating procedures in accordance with the Cal/OSHA COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standards. Additionally, COVID-19 vaccination and testing requirements for health care workers remain unchanged.

The Cal/OSHA Emergency Temporary Standards are effective Jan. 14 with changes including: return-to-work criteria is based on employee vaccination status and test results; isolation and quarantine periods range from 0-10 days based on vaccination status and negative test results; employers must make COVID-19 testing available at no cost and during paid time to all workers who had a close contact with a COVID-19 case in the workplace; and more. 

Delta Dental of California is revising its Delta Dental of California Participating Provider Agreement effective June 1, 2022. Although described as an “enhancement,” the contract amendment alters reimbursement for Premier or PPO contracted dentists who treat DeltaCare® enrollees (Delta’s closed network HMO product) as out-of-network providers. 

 

The contractual amendment revises the reimbursement from the dentists’ submitted fees to the lesser of submitted, Premier and PPO fees. The amendment does not reduce existing approved fees for Premier or PPO dentists. It will only affect reimbursements for DeltaCare® enrollees treated by Premier/PPO providers.  

Our Executive Director, Megan Francis, was asked by the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC), to be part of a discussion regarding healthcare in Orange County with Congresswoman Young Kim.

 

It was a small group who were asked to be on the call with the Congresswoman, Megan, plus 3 other representatives from the City of Hope, Memorial Care Hospital and SCAN Healthcare.

 

Megan spoke on dentistry and the issues that we are hearing from our members, such as:

• Advocating for clarification regarding funding from the HHS, when clarification wasn’t clear
• Staffing issues
• PPE supply issues
• Conflicting requirements from government agencies – calOSHA and the CDPH and lack of communication on requirements for dentists and/or conflicting information

Beginning Jan. 1, 2022, dentists and other prescribers in California must issue electronic-data prescriptions for both controlled and noncontrolled substances with very few exceptions. Paper prescriptions will no longer be allowed by state law, as CDA previously reported.

 

All pharmacies across the state, too, must be capable of accepting those prescriptions and are required to immediately notify prescribers if the electronic transmission fails or is incomplete.

To better serve licensees with greater speed and accuracy, the Dental Board of California (Board) will convert to an online-only renewal process beginning with the July 2021 renewal cycle.

As part of this transition, licensees/permit holders will no longer receive the current renewal notice by mail. Licensees/permit holders will instead be mailed a renewal reminder postcard approximately 90 days prior to their expiration date for each license or permit they hold.

To aid licensees/permit holders in this transition, the Board recommends that licensees/permit holders that are not currently registered on the BreEZe system set up their account now to avoid any technological or account issues when renewing a license or permit near the expiration date.

For information on setting up a BreEZe account and renewing online, please visit the BreEZe webpage at www.BreEZe.ca.gov.

In addition to renewing online, licensees can apply for a new permit and make changes to their information, such as updating a mailing address or requesting a duplicate license.

Until the transition, licensees can continue to renew online or by mail. If there are any additional questions or concerns, please contact the Board by phone at (916) 263-2300, or by email at dentalboard@dca.ca.gov.