Becker's Dental + DSO Review

5 BECKER'S DENTAL + DSO REVIEW - VOL. 1 FEB 2020 Washington dentist says patient, employee allegations are 'social media character assassination' By Gabrielle Masson A Washington dentist says he's the victim of a "so- cial media character assassination campaign" by ex-employees, while former employees and pa- tients claim the dentist violated privacy laws, disparaged patients and employees, and failed to follow regulations, The Daily News reported. Both ex-patients and ex-employees said they are at- tempting to file a class-action lawsuit against Sam Wise, DDS, who bought Longview, Wash.-based Lower Colum- bia Oral Health in August 2019. The dentist is currently the focus of six investigations, Sharon Moysiuk, a Washington Department of Health spokesperson, told The Daily News Jan. 10. Many criticisms against the dentist were posted on so- cial media, which Dr. Wise told The Daily News are either false or from those who don't understand medicine as well as he does. "Hundreds of patients are very satisfied," Dr. Wise told The Daily News, adding that the criticism is from "five or six deplorable, desperate employees that were fired." Dr. Wise said he has fired about 10 employees for disloyalty, dishonesty or lack of knowledge. One ex-patient, Jackie Baker, told The Daily News that Dr. Wise said she had "a horse face" and would need "ex- tensive surgery" if she wanted to be pretty. Dr. Wise said he had told Ms. Baker he could fix a "horse smile" with a procedure that had both cosmetic and medical value. Ms. Baker then had laser cavity fillings and said Dr. Wise removed a millimeter of her gum line without her per- mission. The dentist said he told her what he was doing during the procedure. Ms. Baker's version of events are backed by Tiffani Dschaak, a former dental assistant. Ms. Dschaak said Dr. Wise violated patient privacy laws and, when she confronted him about it, told her, "I'm above the law." Dr. Wise denied violating privacy laws. n Lawsuit against Florida dental practice alleges unsolicited texts drained phone battery By Gabrielle Masson A class-action suit was filed Jan. 6 against a Florida dental practice, claiming the practice sent text messages such as "We are open today!" without consent, violating a federal robocall statute, Bloomberg Law reported. The complaint alleges TLC Dental-Hollywood (Fla.) sent texts to plain- tiff Adriana Hill and other class members using an automatic dialing system without prior consent. Such an action would violate the Tele- phone Consumer Protection Act, which also states that companies sending unsolicited messages risk being sued under federal law. According to the complaint, the dental practice violated the mes- sage recipients' privacy. TLC allegedly sent thousands of unsolicited text messages to the cellphones of the plaintiff and class mem- bers, causing them injuries such as invasion of privacy, aggrava- tion, annoyance, intrusion on seclusion, trespass and conversion. The messages also depleted the plaintiff's phone battery, the complaint continues. The suit seeks injunctive relief to stop the practice's actions, along with statutory damages up to $1,500 per text message. n 33% of dental practices not found in Google search results: study By Mackenzie Garrity D ental practices continue to lack digital marketing execution despite the billions of dollars that are spent annually, ac- cording to a DMscore study released Jan. 23. Palo Alto, Calif.-based DMscore studied 54,000 dental practices. The study was conducted in December 2019, with data collected over the two years prior. The company analyzed the digital market- ing efforts of the dental practices. The study found that digital marketing is under-utilized in the den- tal industry, such as paid search advertising, directory presence and search engine optimization. Across the country, 71 percent of dentists have Yelp profiles. How- ever, 20 percent of the profiles are "unclaimed" by the practices they work at. Dentists should ensure they are claimed by the den- tal practice where they are employed to exert more control over the way their business is perceived. Additionally, a little more than 33 percent of dentists had little to no visibility when it came to Google searches. n DENTAL PROFESSIONALS

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