Location: Webinar
Address: Online
Teaching Method: Lecture
Contact: Andres Bachelet
Email: info@dcdental.org
Phone: (202) 367-1163
Registration closes the Monday before the event at 5pm.
Tuesday, February 9, 2021 - 6:00 to 8:00 pm EST
Wednesday, February 10, 2021 – 6:00 to 8:00 pm EST
Please note pricing:
- Members: $0
- Non-Members: $50
You may register for one session or both.
Topic: “Risk Management and Malpractice Avoidance”
Instructor: Anthony E. Chillura, DMD, FICD
Disclosures: R.K. Tongue Co., Inc. is a 2020-2021 year-round sponsor of DCDS
Course Description:
This course will focus on the dental practice and those circumstances which can reduce and sometimes prevent increased risks that often lead to malpractice claims. Attendees will be provided with practical suggestions and approaches that can successfully avoid common hazards which often increase the likelihood of malpractice claims against the dental practitioner. The course also is designed to explore how professional liability policies work and to demonstrate the wisdom of having your practice protected by professional liability insurance.
Part I
Tuesday, February 9, 2021 - 6:00 to 8:00 pm EST
Dealing with the Dreaded Claim
The Rationale for Purchasing PL Insurance. Define why you purchased PL Insurance. What are the perceived risks that can jeopardize your practice?
- What is a malpractice claim? The legal environment and how dentists can be thrust into that arena. What or who determines that a dentist has liability?
- Partnering with the Insurance claims professional in the claim assessment process. A dentist’s contractual right of consent.
- Considerations that go beyond the controversy at hand. Beside the claim at issue, what other concerns are in play when malpractice is asserted against the dentist?
Part II
Wednesday, February 10, 2021 – 6:00 to 8:00 pm EST
1. Documentation: Charting is Such Sweet Sorrow—An Element of Defensive Dentistry What to memorialize, what to omit, what will you risk to memory? The chart is not a legal document (it is a clinical treatment note) but could become evidence in a legal dispute.
2. Communication is the Key
- Speak to the patient, Listen to the patient, Secure patient understanding. Chart the key points of the communication. The key to “informed consent.” Written v. Oral consent (Is there a difference?)
- Questions as to Informed consent or the failure of consent. Risk of medical battery. (Claims articulated as medical battery just have a bad sound to them, don’t they?)
- Documentation of Informed REFUSAL –make patient sign a form? Sign the chart next to recitation of the risks and benefits of recommended treatment.
- Adult v. Pediatric patients-who has the authority to consent for treatment? Before the visit, how have you memorialized consent in the chart? Why and how can you protect yourself when consent for treatment of a minor is at issue?
Examples: p.4 CLAIM ONE; p. 12 CLAIM TWO; p. 15-16 Adverse Event Protocol
p. 18-19 CLAIM THREE
3. Standard of Care and Deviation
- Follow your education and training/custom and practice
- Secure the proper diagnostic tests/radiographs before any DX and TX
- DO NOT LET PATIENT DICTATE THE SOC and RISK HARM to PATIENT’s DENTAL HEALTH
- Positive Patient experience and Patient Satisfaction
Promotes patient comfort and compliance, reduces reluctance TEAM effort but you remain the play caller.
Examples: p. 33; p. 34; p. 36; p. 39 the ANGRY PATIENT
4. Challenges of Modern Dentistry
- Distraction and the Appearance of Distraction (p. 39)
- Dealing with DRUG SEEKING PATIENTS (p. 44)
- Social Media Uses and Pitfalls (p. 46)
- HIPAA or HYPE (p. 48 & 50)
- Financial Feud or Refunding for Rapport (p. 62)
- Parting with Patients: How to Give Good Advice with Goodbye –patient termination (p.62- 63)
About the Speaker: Anthony E. Chillura, DMD, FICD
As Director of Dental Risk Management for Brown & Brown, Inc., Dr. Chillura is responsible for the overall risk control assessment, evaluation, consulting and technical support of risk exposures with insurance products for the dental profession. He maintained a private multi-specialty practice on Wall Street in NYC for forty-two years. Dr. Chillura‘s well known reputation for high quality, innovative dentistry and safety, makes him uniquely qualified to deliver insights to the Insured dentist. Dr. Chillura’s goal is to facilitate dental practices in their missions to improve patient safety and minimize risk.
Dr. Chillura received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Biology as well as his D.M.D. from Fairleigh Dickinson University. He was awarded a Certificate in Conscious Sedation from Montefiore Medical Center and began private practice in NYC in 1976.
He is a member of the American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry and Fraternity of International College of Dentistry. Dr. Chillura has been a member of the New York Forensic Dental Society since 1981 and served as a forensic odontologist in the NYC office of Chief Medical Examiner identifying victims from the September 11th terrorist attack.
Since 2008 Dr. Chillura has served on the National Advisory Board for the Professional Protector Plan for Dentists and since 2015 has served as its Director of Risk Management managing professional liability for its 30,000 members.
Contributing to the community Dr. Chillura received a certificate of merit from both New York and Connecticut for donating dental services during the Mission of Mercy events which provide free dental services for the underserved. He was recognized with the Distinguished and Meritorious Service Award for the 9/11 dental forensic identification. Additionally, Dr. Chillura participated in the REACH OUT American Healthcare for veterans of foreign wars. He has been an advocate of education devoting time to the Ethics and Mentoring program at the NYU School of Dentistry.
Dr. Chillura resides in Florida with his wife, Deb, and has two grown children, David and Lindsey. He is a commercial rated general aviation pilot, a certified race car driver at Sports Car Club of America and an avid golfer.