Monthly Archives: December 2009

Dentists and Facebook: Do’s and Dont’s

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Social media is permeating all facets of our lives, and it’s no different for dentists. There is good and bad that comes with these new forms of marketing. The good is that we can interact more closely with our patients and connect with them on a more personal level. The bad is that it’s still important to keep a professional relationship and the closer you get to your patients the harder that is to do. This is especially true on Facebook. But luckily there are ways to get the best of both worlds:

The number one concern I hear from dentists about marketing via Facebook is “privacy”.  Dentists, and team members, are worried about patients accessing their personal Facebook accounts once they participate on behalf of a practice/business Facebook page. However, once we review the appropriate privacy settings for personal accounts, that hurdle is easily overcome.

In fact, it’s a good idea to set a Facebook guideline for your practice such as: If posting, commenting or interacting on behalf of the practice (on the practice page), please be sure your privacy settings are set as “private” for your personal Facebook account.  This will help ensure that team members personal lives remain separate from the practice.

Source: Dental Relationships

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Locum Tenens Dentists Becoming More Common

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Amongst healthcare professionals it’s common for people to go where the needs are greatest. The practice, called locum tenens doctors or nurses, refers to instances where a professional works on a temporary basis when the need is there and moves on to another location when the workload has dropped. This is becoming more common now among dentists. One dentist, Dr. Herbert Earnshaw, has found the practice of locum tenens very fulfilling and has used it to replace his regular practice.

Like Dr. Earnshaw, a growing number of dentists are finding opportunities to take their act on the road by working temporary assignments in a variety of settings. The trend is being driven by a national shortage of dentists and mirrors a similar development in medicine, where tens of thousands of MDs work as locum tenens each year. In the field of medicine, private practices, hospitals, community health centers, correctional facilities, military facilities, and other providers are using locum tenens physicians to maintain services when permanent physicians can’t be found. This often takes place in federally designated Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) where the ratio of practitioners to the population falls below the standards set by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

There are over 6,000 HPSAs in the U.S. today where the number of primary care physicians falls below HRSA standards. At over 4,000, the number of dental HPSAs is not far behind. Companies like Staff Care, which for years specialized in the placement of locum tenens physicians, are being asked to find temporary dentists to fill openings around the country.  

Dr. Earnshaw, for example, worked as a locum tenens in a private practice, substituting for a doctor who was recovering from hip replacement surgery. He also worked temporary assignments at community health centers and correctional facilities that are chronically short of permanent dentists. Other dentists, such as Dr. Alton Walker of Rockport, TX, filled in for dentists who were deployed overseas by the military. He also substituted for a dentist who had to temporarily quit working due to injuries from a car accident.