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.
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.
Beginning July 1, providers and employees of providers are prohibited from establishing on behalf of a consumer an open-end credit or loan application that contains a deferred-interest provision. Consumers who wish to access these products will need to apply directly with the credit company.
The state Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom reached an agreement yesterday on a balanced state budget for 2020-21 fiscal year that preserves critical safety net health care funding in the Medi-Cal dental (Denti-Cal) program.
Graduating California dental school students today received news that WREB and ADEX manikin-based examinations will be accepted for licensure in the state effective immediately.
Dentists now have a new resource they can use to work with their physician colleagues to improve oral health. The American Academy of Pediatrics developed an Oral Health Prevention Primer to help pediatricians and other medical professionals identify patients with oral health needs in their practice, collaborate with oral health allies and advocate to prevent dental disease.
CDA-sponsored legislation that further increases dental plan transparency became law on Jan. 1. AB 954 requires dental plans to be more transparent about the leasing of dental networks. The new law will reduce patient and dentist confusion caused by the increasing number of plans leasing their networks to other payers, many times unbeknownst to the enrollee or contracted dentist(s). The law took effect for contracts entered into on or after Jan. 1, 2020.
Improvements to the Medi-Cal Dental program continue with new options for dentists who treat Medi-Cal members, including the ability to provide fluoride treatment and fluoride varnish as a benefit once every four months for patients under age 6. The increase in the benefit periodicity underscores the state’s commitment to regular preventive oral health visits for young children in California.
Direct-to-consumer orthodontic patients will gain new protections when CDA-supported Assembly Bill 1519 becomes the law in January 2020. The first of its kind in the nation, the new law will protect patients from DTC orthodontic companies that are putting profits before patients by taking potentially unsafe shortcuts to the accepted standards of care.
When performing procedures on exposed dental pulp, water or other methods used for irrigation must be “sterile or contain recognized disinfecting or antibacterial properties,” according to a new requirement that all licensed dentists in California must follow beginning Jan. 1, 2019.
Many bills were introduced over the past year to combat the opioid epidemic in California, as CDA previously reported. Here is an overview of CDA-supported legislation in the areas of e-prescribing, informed consent, interstate data sharing and prescription-pad requirements, that Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law in September and how these bills will affect the practice of dentistry.
What started the legal action that led to this settlement? CDA filed the legal action in August 2013 after learning…
