Episode 11: The Drill - August 2025

SUMMARY: In this episode of The Drill, VDA CEO Ryan Dunn provides updates on the Virginia Dental Association's activities and initiatives. Key focus areas include addressing the dental professional shortage in Virginia, highlighting media coverage of the issue, and discussing advocacy efforts with political leaders. The episode also delves into the ADA's suggestions to NCOIL and MetLife regarding dental insurance policies and practices. Additionally, Dunn introduces the latest issue of the Virginia Dental Journal featuring peer-reviewed research and a new column on dental AI. Updates on the VDA's podcast, The Fulcrum, and the upcoming Virginia Dental Showcase 2025 are also provided, emphasizing the organization's commitment to professional development and practice success.

HOST: Ryan Dunn is the CEO of the Virginia Dental Association. Ryan has played major roles with four national and statewide Associations while also spending time working on Capitol Hill. When he’s not talking all things dental, he’s talking about his family and baseball–and sometimes both at the same time.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

VDA in the News: Virginia facing dental hygienist shortage, according to state report

ADA Letter to the National Council of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL)

MetLife agrees to change recoupment policy following ADA letter

Virginia Dental Journal Vol. 102 Number 3

The Fulcrum – Episode 10: Risk Management Made Simple: Tips Every Dentist Should Know

Virginia Dental Showcase

EPISODE CREDITS

Producer: Paul Logan

Host: Ryan Dunn

Post-Production/Editor: Shannon Jacobs

Subscribe, share, and send your feedback and topic ideas to thefulcrumpodcast@vadental.org.

The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only, and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional, medical, or legal advice.

Music in this episode from Epidemic Sound

Transcript

[00:00:09] Ryan Dunn: ​Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Drill. I am VDA CEO, Ryan Dunn, running you through all of the activities here at the Virginia Dental Association in a very short, concise manner following our strategic plan. We call this The Drill, a monthly update from here at the VDA. So, the VDA strategic plan focuses on powerful advocacy, practice success, and professional development. We are advancing dentistry and empowering our members to be successful. So, with that, we'll stay with our format that we laid out from, last month. For powerful advocacy, what is the VDA up to? Well, we have been focused a lot on workforce, trying to answer the a million-dollar question of how we addressed the allied dental professional shortage that is in Virginia. We have, uh, been, as you've probably seen, all over the media in the past few, weeks here, whether it be on ABC Channel 8 here in Richmond, WTOP News in Northern Virginia, and the likes between Roanoke and Virginia Beach, been all over the news talking about and making people aware of the allied dental professional shortage that we have in the Commonwealth.

[00:01:26] Ryan Dunn: It's actually something that's throughout the nation, but in Virginia, we're talking about it from the numbers and the stats and the data that has come out in regards to the need. Virginia is about a thousand dental hygienists short of what the market could absorb right now.

[00:01:43] Ryan Dunn: And this is a, a number that we've been talking about quite a bit, uh, with our graduation rate of 135 dental hygienists from across the Commonwealth each year. That's the number of spots that we have in dental hygiene schools. As you can see, with the market, what it could absorb right now and graduating 135, we're not getting out of this hole anytime soon, if we stay on our current path. So, we are looking at all avenues and all options as we try to address this. I talked a little bit last month, regarding our activities that we've done, whether it be starting new hygiene schools with Fortis or working with the community college system, but we're also looking at all kinds of avenues. At the end of the day, people in the Commonwealth, uh, won't be suffering with long wait times and inability to see a hygienist. So, we continue to advocate for this. We had a meeting in July. We met with Abigail Spanberger, uh, former congresswoman and candidate for governor. Uh, met with her and her policy team to make her aware of the issues that we face, the investments that are needed, for this to be addressed should, she become the next governor of Virginia and we will do the likes, uh, with Winsome Sears, our Lieutenant Governor, who is also running for, governor of Virginia. So, we want both candidates for governor, whoever wins, to understand and know our issues here at the Virginia Dental Association.

[00:03:15] Ryan Dunn: Also, in advocacy on the ADA side of things, uh, touching on a couple of different things you may have seen. Some communication that came from the ADA regarding the ADA's letter that they sent to NCOIL, which is the National Council of Insurance Legislators, relating to DLR, the Dental Loss Ratio, and some suggestions that they have.

[00:03:38] Ryan Dunn: The biggest one being that they suggested that NCOIL look at a new policy that would not include the community expenditures when calculating dental insurers’ investments in care. Um, this number, you know, can be strewed so their, their suggestion is to not include that and to also not include the agent and broker fees, in the commissions, that should not be included in the numerator, or permitted to be deducted from the denominator. So, I get a little bit into the weeds there, but this is some important information when it comes to getting what an accurate Dental Loss Ratio is or exactly how much dental insurance companies are spending on patient care.

[00:04:20] Ryan Dunn: Getting that number more and more accurate over time is very important. That's something ADA and the VDA continue to work on. And then also you may have seen a news release that came out from the ADA regarding its, uh, policy with MetLife. Carriers have been using some tactics in recoupment practices. Basically, the ADA was made aware of dental benefit carriers reducing or offsetting payments owed to dentists to recoup overpayments made to other dentists. Seems wild that you could recoup from someone who had nothing to do with it. It's occurred when dentists separately provided care to the same patient or a different family member covered under the same policy. And, uh, in one known instance, they actually. Uh, the dentists were not affiliated at all with the same practice. So, the ADA Council on Dental Benefit Programs, um, had worked with MetLife and got this actually addressed. I bring that up as a prime example of some of the things in the work that we do isn't always done in the general assembly isn't always done at the Board of Dentistry. Sometimes it is just us working with others in the space or with third-party payers, uh, to acknowledge issues and to fix them.

[00:05:35] Ryan Dunn: Here at the Virginia Dental Association, um, we have our own ability to aggregate all of the insurance complaints through our D.I.G. Tracker. If you're not familiar with our D.I.G. Tracker, our Dental Insurance Grievance Tracker, this is an opportunity for your office to be able to input issues. This allows us to keep track of things and allows us to fix problems where they arise. So please, if your office is not taking advantage of that, uh, please take a moment to try and do that.

[00:06:11] Ryan Dunn: In the next section, we have our practice success. The VDA is always focused on bringing you some of the best insights and abilities to make your practice a huge success. The newest issue of the Virginia Dental Journal has come out. We hope you will take time to read it. There are some really amazing articles in that, and you will notice that there is a peer-reviewed research article that has come out. It examines Communication methods used by patients and clinicians to overcome language barriers in dental settings. Aimed at, determining the most preferred and beneficial resources for how to deal with that. Again, it's some peer-reviewed research actually coming out in our Virginia Dental Journal. So please check that out. Look for that in your inbox. 

[00:06:57] Ryan Dunn: There is also a new column called the Dental AI Roundup. Dr. Paul Supan is really taking the lead and helping us stay on top of all things related to dental AI, which is a daunting task as it changes, month to month, as it seems, and more and more things keep coming out. So, uh, it's a column designed to present some useful artificial intelligence updates of interest, uh, specifically to the dental community. So again, that also is in this edition of the Virginia Dental Journal.

[00:07:27] Ryan Dunn: As you know, we continue to publish our podcast, The Fulcrum. Karen Wood, here in our office, talked with Dr. Al Rizkalla. The podcast episode covers a lot of various aspects of dental malpractice. Informed consent, documentation, patient interaction, and critical role of detailed ethical patient care. Dr. Rizkalla does a wonderful job highlighting common claims against dentists, the importance of effective communication with patients, and the necessity of thorough and accurate documentation. If you're not following our podcast, please go ahead and subscribe to The Fulcrum.

[00:08:08] Ryan Dunn: And then going forward, something I wanna continue to remind everybody of regards to your practice success, the VDA is continuing to bring value to the entire team. And one of those things we're gonna be doing in 2026 is to bring the affiliate membership to your front office and your dental insurance coordinators so that they can communicate together, find more common ground, have CE opportunities to better do their job as well. We want to provide this, as a benefit to our VDA member offices. So be on the lookout for more information related to that. We're excited that that will be taking place in 2026.

[00:08:55] Ryan Dunn: And our third focus area as a part of our strategic plan is professional development. A big part of that for us is the Virginia Dental Showcase. The 2025 meeting will be September 26th through 27th at the Hilton Norfolk, The Main. Uh, we hope that you are able to join us. Uh, there's gonna be over 30 hours of CE available for you to be able to get to your CE requirements for the year. This year's program includes CE courses that meet the Board of Dentistry requirements, so you can come knock those all out at once, including substance abuse and opioid prescribing. Hands-on CPR and hands-on clinical courses.

[00:09:35] Ryan Dunn: We'll have networking opportunities and a whole lot of fun while we're at it. Uh, we'll have a membership party one evening. And lots of opportunities to meet, greet, and get to know other professionals. We have an exhibit hall so that you can get your hands on some of the newest and greatest things in dentistry.

[00:09:52] Ryan Dunn: So again, the Virginia Dental Showcase, September 26th through 27th. If you haven't registered, please hurry and do so. We look forward to seeing you.

[00:10:03] Ryan Dunn: With that, I'm Ryan Dunn, CEO, at the Virginia Dental Association. And just remember, there is only one organization that wakes up every day, uh, going to bat for dentistry here in the Commonwealth, and that's the Virginia Dental Association. All of that which we do, is all for your benefit, and we look forward to doing it each and every day.