Category: Legal Issues

To the Members of the Ohio Dental Association: I understand that some of you have recently received factually inaccurate information regarding the Dentist and Dental Hygienist Compact. Senate Bill 40, which includes the Compact, passed the Ohio Senate and Ohio House of Representatives with overwhelming bipartisan support and was signed into law ... [continue reading]

Dr. Joseph Crowley has a long and distinguished career in organized dentistry. Among his many offices, he has served as president of both the Ohio Dental Association (2005-06) and the American Dental Association (2017-18). In 2019, following the end of his term as ADA president, Crowley was appointed chair of the Coalition for Modernizing Dental ... [continue reading]

In September, the Ohio State Dental Board floated a new proposed set of rules that would effectively end state protection of the public related to false claims of dental specialty status in advertising. The proposed rules would remove any criteria for specialty status or specialty-granting organizations and would merely require that anyone ... [continue reading]

While the title of this article is about as broad as could possibly be, please know that I am not attempting to fit numerous courses of legal study into one article in the “ODA Today.” However, in the past few months I have been asked many questions regarding contracts. The intent of this article is to discuss some best practices regarding ... [continue reading]

This summer, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation that prohibits dental insurers from forcing dentists to accept the fees insurers set for non-covered services. This was the result of many years of advocacy from the Ohio Dental Association on the topic. This legislation will go into effect 90 days after it was signed, and dental insurance ... [continue reading]

Earlier this year, I wrote a column about the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed rule that would ban most non-compete clauses in employment contracts. As I wrote at the time, this rule would have a significant impact on employment contracts across all professions, including dentistry. In fact, I have had the chance to review hundreds of dentist ... [continue reading]

The ADA’s Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct (Code) requires dentists to respect patients’ rights to self-determination and confidentiality. Section 1 – Principle: Patient Autonomy of the Code “expresses the concept that professionals have a duty to treat the patient according to the patient’s desires, within the ... [continue reading]

On July 24, 2024, Gov. Mike DeWine signed Senate Bill 40, which contained language that would eliminate the requirement for dentists to accept a fee schedule for services that the insurance companies do not even cover. This was the result of many years of advocacy from the ODA on the topic. But now that it has passed what does this mean for dental ... [continue reading]

This month we will wrap up the top legal issues in the dental office. Please look back over the last two articles to review all topics and as always contact the ODA with your questions. 4.) Treatment of Minors with Separated, Unmarried or Divorced Parents Under Ohio law, courts may designate parents into two categories: resident parents and ... [continue reading]

The Ohio Dental Association has long had policies in support of dental licensure reform and freedom of movement for dentists between states. In fact, when I was first hired at the ODA way back in 1994 as the director of legal and legislative services, the ODA hosted a national symposium on dental licensure reform that included leaders from ... [continue reading]