A former nurse from Midway, Florida was convicted of wire fraud, theft of government funds, possession of unauthorized access devices and aggravated identity theft.  The 41-year-old woman was employed as a nurse in a Tallahassee nursing home. 

She stole the personal information of 26 patients, although she was discovered to have a notebook containing the personal information of 150 individuals.

Hands are porous and can act like a sponge. Chemicals that are not meant for the body to absorb are used on a daily basis in a dental practice. Wearing the appropriate hand protection for a task is very important. The gloves used to treat patients are very different than the gloves to be worn to process instruments. 

Wearing clinic gloves to process instruments is very dangerous. Over half of the sharps incidents that occur in dental practices, occur while processing instruments in the Sterilization Area. In the great majority of those incidents occurring during instrument processing, thicker, chemical-resistant, gloves can be the difference between a clinician suffering a dirty stick or not. Instrument processing gloves are referred to as utility gloves and should be puncture resistant...

One of the most valuable elements of Smart Training’s client offerings is our comprehensive HIPAA Policies and Procedures document, which offers more than 40 required patient privacy guidelines to client offices.

That’s a question our Compliance Advisers are asked every week in the field. The short answer is “NO.” The long answer is a little more complex. Most scrub tops have short sleeves, which, for all practical purposes, makes them ill-suited for PPE, as PPE must cover the arms down to the wrists, to protect them from aerosols.

​So, if someone were to utilize scrubs for PPE, the scrub top would have to have long sleeves or they would have to also wear arm coverings as well. In addition, if someone wore scrubs as PPE, they would have to change them whenever visibly soiled and could not wear them outside of clinical areas. In most instances, dental office teams wear scrubs as their office “uniform,” and wear a lab jacket when necessary...

​Many dentists and dental office employees don’t realize that any social media discussion of patient treatment – even posts that do not identify a patient by name – can violate HIPAA.

Because social media is still evolving, most offices have no social media policy and haven’t given much thought to how they guard against patient privacy breaches via Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets.

Until two years ago, dental offices had avoided fines for HIPAA noncompliance. ​In 2015, Dr. Joseph Beck became the first dentist to be fined for a HIPAA violation, which sent a warning to dental offices nationwide about HIPAA compliance. 

Interestingly, the penalty Dr. Beck paid was not issued by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR), but by the Office of the State Attorney General. Dr. Beck was cited and fined for mishandling the Protected Health Information of 5,600 patients...

​So many times when a practice needs a Treatment Coordinator to present the treatment plans to patients, the person hired is usually a good communicator but knows nothing about orthodontics.  This position is very important as it is part of our first impression that our new patients are forming about our office.  

I have seen many practices that lose the new patient because the Treatment Coordinator can’t answer questions properly due to lack of knowledge of the procedures performed in the practice and the concepts of orthodontics.  This position can make or break a practice.   Training is essential and builds a great foundation for a practice.  

​You’re at your desk, working away, when you receive a message from a Facebook friend. You click on the link. Congratulations! You’ve just fallen for the latest social media adware scam.

While little is known about the adware or those behind it, the adware uses Facebook Messenger to track your web browser activity and pushes you to click on malicious ads or give out personal information. The adware is also able to send messages to people on your contact list.​ Others will now receive a fake message from your compromised Facebook account.