Williams on appealing denials; Levin on communication; experience counts in HNC treatment

Dear DrBicuspid Member,

DrBicuspid.com has teamed with a former dental insurance executive to provide expertise to you and your staff for maximizing your patient's benefits. Twice a month, Dr. Doyle Williams will give nuggets of advice to help your claims get approved. In today's column, he notes that many denials for procedures performed are done automatically by insurance carriers without a human review. He advocates that you should appeal a denial for covered services with an explanation as to why your patient required the services, and you should copy the regulators in your state.

It's easy for dental professionals to forget that some patients may have very low dental literacy, such as those who rarely see or have never seen a dentist. They may also be apprehensive about what's about to happen in the treatment chair. Make the effort to inform and reassure them, even though doing so calls for a little more time and effort, according to Dr. Roger P. Levin.

Experienced radiation centers have better outcomes for patients with head and neck cancer (HNC), according to a new study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Researchers found that patients who underwent radiation therapy at treatment centers with less experience had higher cancer recurrence and poorer overall survival. Read more here.

The sexual behavior of teenage girls does not appear to be affected after they obtain the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, according to a new study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Read Features Editor Donna Domino's article here.

If you didn't see Dr. Williams' first column on how to increase your office's performance on insurance coding, take a look here. Also, thanks to everyone who has read, and commented, on my interview with Dr. Richard Valachovic on holistic dental school admissions. Clearly, improving the dental school experience is an issue on the minds of your fellow members.