Dental Care

* As members of the California State Board of Dental Examiners (the chief regulatory agency of dentistry for the state), we thank you for your public service by printing “Big Dental Plan Cheats the Poor” (June 26) and for alerting the public to potential problems when receiving dental care. We agree with your article which decries the shady practices of some dental clinics.

The State Board of Dental Examiners is very concerned about practices at dental managed care clinics. We have been working to improve consumer protection in the dental clinics of our state. Unfortunately, current law has made it difficult for the state board to protect the dental consumers of California from practices such as those outlined in your article. We are extremely concerned about policies of clinics that would cause acts of commission or omission in the dental care of patients. Clearly, this situation is intolerable for the board.

We have begun to modify existing law to improve the quality of dental care in dental clinics. In fact, as of this writing, AB 502, which has cleared the state Assembly, is now being considered by the state Senate and deserves passage. This bill does two things:

* Mandates the sharing of information between the agency regulating HMOs and the State Board of Dental Examiners to ensure appropriate disciplinary action can be taken by the board.

* Defines as unprofessional conduct (grounds for discipline of a licensee) implementation by a licensee of the board of any protocol which discourages proper care or encourage excessive care.

Through the passage of AB 502 and similar legislation we are working to improve the board’s ability to protect the consumers of dental services in California. AB 502 represents one in a series of steps to to improve consumer safety.

Consumers with questions regarding their dental care can call the State Board of Dental Examiners at (916) 263-2336.

JOEL STROM DDS

PETER HARTMANN DDS

Board of Dental Examiners

Sacramento