For those of us who work at a desk, we've all grown familiar with the sensation of our backs (and let's be honest: our butts) not feeling the greatest at the end of the workday. Sitting in a chair and leaning toward our computer screens, our postures take the brunt of our hard day's work. How many times have I clocked out of work and felt like my body was just kind of... mad at me?

When I was a compliance officer and OSHA Inspector, I tried to keep my cool and not let the little things irk me. Despite my best efforts, however, each industry had its few hazards that I always found particularly frustrating. Today, I’m going to share with you my compliance pet peeves for the dental industry. I have issued citations and fines for each of these hazards and want your office to avoid them!

When a patient brings a service animal to the practice, the situation can be potentially baffling to staff. It's understandable if practice staff can feel apprehensive about what to do next, or wonder what the correct questions are to ask and what questions are to be avoided. As this situation seems to be increasingly more common in dental practices, it could be easy to say or ask the wrong thing.

In the workplace, we must foster an environment that respects diverse opinions. The subject of politics can be polarizing and stir up strong emotions that are tied to our personal core values.  

With the upcoming presidential election, team members might throw verbal punches at one another and debate controversial topics while on the clock.

OSHA published the Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Healthcare and Social Service Workers and now plans to release a proposed rule in December which would be effective in 2025.

Interestingly, California dental practices were required to establish, implement and maintain a workplace violence prevention plan July 1^st of this year, regardless of how many employees are in place.

Perhaps you heard the disturbing news about a Knoxville, TN dental practice who shared a video on social media revealing the contents of a private journal that belonged to one of their patients.

The Family Rights and Responsibilities Act took effect July 1, 2024 in Tennessee.  Of key interest to healthcare professionals is that the parental rights are exclusively reserved to a parent of a child without obstruction of a government entity including the rights to make all physical and mental healthcare decisions for the child and consent to all physical and mental health care on the child’s behalf.

OSHA updated the criteria for several health and physical hazard classes to provide better information to employees.  A major change involves health hazards with updated skin corrosion/irritation and serious eye damage/eye irritation chapters. 

CAUTION!!! One of our dentists reported that they received a phone call claiming to be from the Tennessee Board of Dentistry. The caller said there was a drug incident being reflected on the dentist's dental license and that the license would be suspended. The fraudulent caller had the dentist's license information, but only information that is available to the public.

As you are aware, Change Healthcare experienced a cyberattack in early 2024.  Change Healthcare is owned by UnitedHealth Group.  Change Healthcare manages health care technology connected to processing insurance claims and billing. This includes Practice Works, SoftDent, Dentrix, EagleSoft, Open Dental and many more companies.  They serve basically as the business associate to the covered entity.  Please review your Business Associate Agreements in place with these companies

Recently I co-presented a course on how to do risk assessments for the Association of Dental Safety (formerly OSAP).  A top down strategy to assess risk is to evaluate the areas of strategic, technology, financial, operations, legal/regulatory and human capital.

We’ve addressed this support question regularly over the years when dental offices inquire whether their surveillance system violates HIPAA compliance and patient privacy.

As many of you are aware, the Federal Trade Commission issued its final rule on April 23, 2024 banning the use of non-compete agreements.  Dentists fear that the provisions of their employment agreements with associate dentists will not be upheld. This means that potentially an associate could easily set up their own practice within minutes of where they associated and pull patients away from the practice where they were employed. How should we react to this ban on non-compete agreements? 

Gel nails and acrylic nails continue to be popular in today’s world. This article explores the safety of gel and acrylic nails and whether these trends are appropriate for clinical dental team members.

Recently Walgreens was ordered to pay $205,000 in EEOC pregnancy and disability discrimination lawsuit. Evidently a Walgreens store located in Alexandria, Louisiana refused to let an employee take emergency leave to seek medical attention. The pregnant employee...

The ADA updated their recommendations for radiography safety in dentistry on February 1, 2024.  The use of lead abdominal aprons or thyroid collars on patients when taking x-rays is no longer recommended.  This decision was based on the ADA’s expert panel after reviewing published studies on radiography for dental patients.  This applies to all dental patients, including, quite surprisingly, pregnant patients.  According to them, the lead aprons and thyroid collars can block the primary x-ray beam diminishing the quality of the radiograph resulting in more exposures.

We all work from day to day without thinking of the possibilities of a dire emergency happening. But in the offhand chance that someone needs to be revived, is your AED ready?

Imagine this scenario: a patient suddenly needs a defibrillator. The team gets it and brings it to the patient, and it’s covered in a thin layer of dust. The team tries to use it. It is not in working order, and the patient is lost.

Are you a LLC, a PLLC or corporate entity?  Be aware that Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act in 2021. The new federal reporting requirement for beneficial ownership information goes into effect beginning January 1, 2024. The goal of this new law is to prevent money laundering and other financial crimes, including terrorist financing.

The OCR settled with a medical group in Louisiana for a phishing attack that affected 35,000 patients for $480,000.

Phishing attacks can result in identity theft, financial loss, discrimination, stigma, mental anguish, negative consequences to reputation, health, or physical safety of the individuals, or to others identified in the individual’s protected health information, according to the Office of Civil Rights. 

Are you counting down the days until Christmas? With the holiday season fast approaching, questions arise for employers and their teams. Let’s talk about the ABC’s of Christmas in the workplace.