U.S. Supreme Court ruling; Madow Bros. on Seinfeld and goals; Levin on overhead

Dear DrBicuspid.com Member,

The U.S. Supreme Court announced last week a decision in the case of North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission, ruling 6-3 against the dental board and stating that the dental board could be subject to antitrust claims. Read our report here.

In their latest column, the Madow Brothers share one of Jerry Seinfeld's strategies for success. The genius behind this strategy is that monster-sized goals can overwhelm you, but achieving things in small increments is a less intimidating system. Things magically get done. Just don't break the chain.

Keeping practice overhead under control is essential, but that doesn't mean all cuts are good. Many line items in your operating budget have a direct bearing on daily performance, the quality of care, and overall practice success. Dr. Roger P. Levin writes that the challenge is identifying and stripping away unnecessary spending without impairing your ability to meet your own performance standards.

At the Chicago Midwinter Meeting, the Organization for Safety, Asepsis and Prevention announced that it will launch the Safest Dental Visit infection-control education program this spring. A coalition of clinicians, manufacturers, and infection-control educators will work together to ensure patient safety and safe practice environments during dental visits. Read Features Editor Donna Domino's article here.

Last week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling will have an impact in dentistry and beyond. What will happen with state boards of dental examiners now that Justice Kennedy has essentially ruled that even though the dental board is an agency of the state, its actions must still be supervised by the state in order to enjoy antitrust immunity? Kennedy wrote that the exemption "does not authorize the states to abandon markets to the unsupervised control of active market participants."