The Department of Consumer Affairs on Oct. 22 issued a fourth C.E. extension waiver, giving all California-licensed dental professionals whose active licenses expire between March 31 and Dec. 31 until April 22, 2021, to meet license renewal requirements.

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara last Wednesday issued a notice to California health insurance and specialized health insurance companies, including 55 dental benefits companies, requesting that they “provide their policyholders with a partial premium refund no later than December 31, 2020.

Dental assistants and dental hygienists in California who have not been able to complete their RDA and RDH programs and therefore take the required examinations and obtain their licenses due to COVID-19 restrictions now have additional time to satisfy the exam requirements.

BinaxNow received an emergency use authorization from the FDA, becoming the latest rapid and inexpensive antigen test to be preliminarily approved for wide use. But tests that have received the authorization in recent weeks are not advanced enough to enable dentists to definitively identify patients with or without COVID-19.

Two bills that will assist dental practice owners impacted by the pandemic became law last week with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature. One new law will protect PPP loan recipients from having to pay potentially thousands in unexpected state income tax on their forgiven PPP loans. 

Despite Big Tobacco’s multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to stop legislation that would ban the sale of flavored tobacco products in California, the Legislature passed and Gov. Gavin Newsom quickly signed Senate Bill 793 into law last Friday. 

California-licensed dentists, registered dental hygienists and registered dental assistants whose active licenses expire between March 31 and Oct. 31, 2020, now have until Feb. 27, 2021, to complete the continuing education courses and take and pass the examinations required for license renewal. 

Healthy People 2030, a 10-year national plan to promote and improve public health and prevent disease, launched Aug. 18 via webcast with experts from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention speaking on health equity, well-being and business partnerships. 

Current legislation that would expand the provisions of the California Family Rights Act to employers with five or more employees ignores the severe economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on small businesses and could be “particularly devastating” to dental practices, according to CDA.