Page 6 - NCDS May_Aug Bulletin_Neat

Message from the President

Barry Rozenberg, DDS

The summer time blues, where are all our patients? Besides
the beach and vacation, we lose some patients through the
backdoor. Some patients leave your practice and you never
know until they don’t respond to their recall. Conducting an exit
interview by your front desk maybe helpful in resolving some
of these issues providing that your front desk is thorough and
makes eye to eye contact with your patient.

In the ADA, state dental association and the local dental
societies we are very concerned about debts incurred during
dental school. How are our young dentist going to pay back
their loans and have money to open their practice?
The solution can be having a fee-for-service practice. There
are patients in all socio-economic levels that appreciate quality
care (not just the wealthy). The ADA needs to help dentist
realize that the “insurance model” in dentistry (where patients
pay hardly any premiums) cannot be compared to the medical
model where the average family is paying more than $20,000/
year in premiums.

In the world of evidence based dentistry and “best practice” as
dentist we need to be able to give our patients our best and
that requires adequate time to perform procedures. It is very
difficult to do this when one is more concerned with volume
than perfection.

We (dentists) have gone to college, dental school, residency programs and have the debt to prove it. We have earned
the right to do the best that we can do and be properly compensated.

There is no question that establishing a fee-for-service practice is much harder but then again, getting your education
was no easy task.

Many years ago, I became disillusioned with dentistry because my practice, the insurance part was running me and not
me running the practice. I almost quit but I didn’t. I started eliminating insurance plans from my practice over 5 years
and never looked back. Believe me I wish I had a good mentor when I graduated dental school because I would have
taken the fee-for-service path from the get go.

Have a great summer and I hope to see you all at one of our Nassau County Dental Society meetings.

Barry

Barry Rozenberg DDS
President, Nassau County Dental Society
Diplomate, American Board of Orofacial Pain*
*Not a recognized specialty of the ADA

6 | Nassau County Dental Society • www.nassaudental.org