Article Details

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last December issued guidance indicating that employers may encourage or possibly require COVID-19 vaccinations, but policies must comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Sunstar Americas Inc. has expanded its voluntary nationwide recall on its prescription oral rinse. The FDA on Dec. 28, 2020, published an updated announcement expanding the expiration period from Dec. 31, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2022.

Practice Support and Risk Management are receiving calls from member dentists concerned about how the pandemic is affecting daily business operations. To ensure all member concerns are addressed, CDA has compiled the most recent, commonly asked questions from member dentists about reducing employee hours and wages, managing delinquent accounts, patient dismissals and more.

Dental practice owners should be prepared for major changes to the California Family Rights Act. The changes take effect Jan. 1, 2021, and will impact very small businesses who will soon be required to provide 12 workweeks of job-protected unpaid family leave benefits to eligible employees annually. 

CDA is encouraging practice owners to maintain best practices this fall and winter to protect themselves, their patients and their staff against the flu virus. Getting vaccinated is even more important this year to help reduce the strain on health care systems responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

With an increasing demand for dental assistants throughout California, CDA is encouraging member dentists to consider transferable skills while recruiting and hiring. Smile Crew CA aims to create a pool of qualified candidates by targeting job seekers who have been displaced from service roles with adaptable skills that would make them a viable dental assistant.  

Practice owners should revise their COVID-19 contact tracing protocols to reflect the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new guidelines on what it means to have been in close contact with an infected person. This could mean analyzing brief interactions between employees and infected colleagues or patients that may have occurred several times a day, instead of one or two prolonged exposures.

The manufacturer of a decontamination system used to decontaminate certain N95 respirators for health care personnel received a warning notice last week from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for “failure to comply with regulatory requirements for medical device reporting.”

The American Dental Association has released a COVID-19 & Lab Testing Requirements Toolkit to aid dentists who are interested in incorporating rapid point-of-care testing in their practice. To assist members with California-specific requirements, CDA’s Clinical Care Workgroup will release additional POC testing guidance next month.