ViewPoint Tummy-tucks
I thought I had seen it all … that is, until a new (?) wrinkle (pun intended) reared its ugly head.
Two ads for dental seminars on injectible botulinum toxin (Botox) therapeutics recently crossed my desk.
The subjects cited in the ads included: how to smooth lines and eliminate wrinkles; lip sculpting; volume enhancement and lifting the corners of the mouth, among a litany of other questionable treatments.
One course offers direction on how to partner with a physician in a medical-dental spa and bill through a medical corporation. Another promises help in securing liability insurance. And another guarantees making the practice compliant with the Dental Practice Act.
You are promised a 156-page manual, handy detailed technique sheets to use during procedures and a telephone number to call if you get stuck in the middle of a procedure.
You can tape the assembly (oops I meant treatment sheets) on a nearby wall in the operatory to refer to during procedures. I would also suggest that you wear a Bluetooth telephone while blissfully injecting because you may need to be talked down, reminiscent of bad movies in which an airport traffic controller safely talks down a hysterical passenger thrown into the pilot’s seat by fate.
The courses don’t come cheap. They range from $2,195 to $4,580. But again, it’s less costly than a medical education, not to mention specialty training.
Dr. Barbara Mousel, State of Illinois Dental Examiner, cautions that course instructors may not demonstrate on live patients unless they hold a valid Illinois license. The state of California Dental Board ruled that the use of Botox was illegal by dentists. They have since modified their ruling to allow the use of Botox by oral surgeons in certain instances, especially trauma.
The course guides the participants in how to comply with practice acts, how to bill through medical plans and how to file insurance claims; that implicitly tells me there are serious legal considerations with this practice. There is no point mentioning those nits, morality and ethics; it’s likely the entrepreneurs are not familiar with either of them.
Besides offering Botox, aromatherapy, massages, chiropractics and voodoo, I wouldn’t be surprised if dental-medical spas are soon offering tummy-tucks. I await anxiously the next exciting expansion of the dental practice.
By the way, there is a moral and ethical pathway to doing plastic surgery: go to medical school.
Dr. Lamacki is the editor of CDS Review, the journal of the Chicago Dental Society. His comments, reprinted here with permission, originally appeared in the December 2008 issue of that publication. A past ADA trustee from Illinois and past president of CDS, Dr. Lamacki currently chairs the ADA sesquicentennial planning committee.