There is a HUGE opportunity for Apple in dentistry. Most major Dental Practice Management and Imaging Software Platforms are pc-based, closed source, bulky and require huge capital expense for in-office hardware, software and ongoing maintenance. Two Henry Schein (NYSE) subsidaries, Dentrix and EZDental, are examples.

We are developing 1dentist Software to offer lean, Open Source Cloud Computing and SaaS. Our early data shows significant interest from dentists within our 500 dentistry urls worldwide at 1dentist.com.

And even Kodak should refocus on open source digital medical and dental imaging, e.g. CT, MRI, x-ray and photography. Dexis (Danaher) currently has significant market share of dental imaging and is closed source.

Read The Wall Street Journal article.

1dentist, LLC has recently launched in alpha FREE open source 1dentist Dental Practice Management Software available remotely on one of our servers.  The idea is to allow young dentists the ability to develop their practices using Cloud Computing for a very low monthly connection fee.

This idea meshes well with current interest in EMR.

Visit 1dentist software for more info.

Where Are The Doctors?

by Dr. Jeffrey Dorfman

(Published in Dentist Quarterly – The official publication of the New York County Dental Society – March 2000)

I attended the Bear Stearns 12th Annual Health Care Conference that was scheduled to run from September 15-17, 1999 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. There were over 1200 registered attendees and over 150 speakers representing all kinds of healthcare companies. I was one of very few doctors who was invited to attend. I was asked to leave.

I was asked to leave because I asked two questions. Will insurance companies like Aetna and Wellpoint respect the request of the American Dental Association and stop using ‘usual, customary and reasonable (ucr)’ terminology in dealing with patients and instead use ‘maximum plan allowance.’ The reason for this request is that there is no such thing as a usual, customary and reasonable fee; there is tremendous variation of reimbursements for a given procedure even within the same insurance company based upon the specific policy purchased and premiums paid. To use such terminology raises distrust in the mind of the patient regarding their doctors fees.

I also asked the management of several publicly traded dental management service organizations if their growth strategies could avoid taking equity positions in dental practices through the legal subterfuge of ‘hard asset buyouts.’ This is because the American Dental Association believes that the welfare of patients is best considered when the ownership and control of dental practices remain with dentists, not investors.

These are legitimate questions that must be answered if doctors are to become involved in the evolution of healthcare delivery in our country. Investment bankers and their investors should not consider doctors merely a variable cost in healthcare and in need of paternalistic employment. We should be considered equal partners and invited to attend these conferences. Healthcare is much more than the pathetic representation of revenues and income growth as shown at this conference.

Premium Medical Services and Multi-tiered Insurance Plans
by Dr. Jeffrey D. Dorfman

Premium health care services and multi-tiered insurance plans have been getting some recent, deserved publicity though they are really not new ideas. There have always been medical offices offering premium services to those patients who could afford the fees. Multi-tiered insurance plans also already exist. Every doctor knows that some insurance plans reimburse at a substantially higher rate than others and this is specifically related to the monthly premiums paid by the insured.

Multi-tiered insurance plans should be further developed as employers recognize the need for their employees to become actively involved in the expense of receiving health care. This could become a political minefield though because Americans want to believe that access to proper health care should be equally available to all. The problem for insurers is to finally, honestly acknowledge that insurance benefits are really related to the premiums being paid, and not to the spurious notion of an ever-changing, “usual, customary and reasonable” fee. This phrase has sparked recent lawsuits from the American Medical Association and the American Dental Association; this author has written a lot about this subject for years.

The only way for the U.S. to tackle health care costs is to acknowledge that one cannot legislate socialistic health care in a capitalistic society. Medical education should start in high school and continue throughout an undergraduate college curriculum. Those students on such an academic pathway could help provide health care to the 40 million uninsured Americans. We have already created a working model for this concept in our dental office. [Those interested may go to the "Office Staff" section of this website and then click on "The Internship Program" to learn more].