Small Smiles Dental Centers
The parent company, Church Street Health Management (CSHM), has its headquarters in Suite 520 of the Castner-Knott Building in Nashville, Tennessee.
[6] Throughout the chain's history, it faced accusations of providing unnecessary dental care and improper restraint of child patients.
In January 2010, it gained national attention when FORBA settled False Claims Act allegations with the United States Department of Justice for $24 million.
[5] Initially Small Smiles was a family-owned business headed by the Italian American DeRose family of Pueblo and a Denver, Colorado dentist named William Mueller.
As of that year, the vast majority of low income children on Medicaid in El Paso County went to Small Smiles.
According to Colorado state records,[14] Michael and Edward DeRose said that they used papoose boards so that they could do dental work on larger numbers of children in a more rapid manner.
[14] In a related development, Medicaid Dental Centers came under fire in 2003 when WCNC-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina, reported on several traumatic experiences by its patients, including liberal uses of papoose boards and one child having 16 of his baby teeth capped in one sitting.
[12] A May 9, 2004 story in The Colorado Springs Gazette revealed that the children underwent large amounts of dental work at the clinics.
The State of Colorado Medicaid office placed a daily limit on stainless steel crowns to slow the payments.
Her crew filmed video of screaming children, bound with papoose boards, as technicians performed dental work.
Interviews with several former employees who either resigned or were fired after speaking out against the company's practices revealed other abuses, including dental staff conducting X-rays on children even though they were not certified to do so.
[26] In April 2008, Michael A. DeRose and Letitia L. Ballance settled with the United States and North Carolina to resolve False Claims Act allegations that their Medicaid Dental Center (MDC), previously known as Smile Starters and Carolina Dental Center, made false or fraudulent Medicaid claims.
MDC agreed to pay $10,050,000 and to not contest that their dentists performed unwarranted pulpotomies and placed stainless steel crowns.
[27] A Kentucky woman named Debbie Hagan started a blog, "Dentist the Menace," which criticized the use of papoose boards at Small Smiles.
The investigation was spurred by three qui tam lawsuits filed by former employees in Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina in late 2007 and early 2008.
The US Justice Department found that FORBA was liable for: ... causing the submission of claims for reimbursement for a wide range of dental services provided to low-income children that were either medically unnecessary or performed in a manner that failed to meet professionally-recognized standards of care.
In this case, FORBA put greed and profits before the well-being of children," said Timothy J. Heaphy, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia.
[7] In response, company chairman and CEO Michael Lindley posted a statement on the firm's website stating "...We entered into the settlement to avoid the delay, uncertainty, inconvenience and expense of litigation, and did not admit any liability.
Chuck Grassley, a member of the U.S. Senate, said that the company was scamming taxpayers and causing abuses to children in order to generate revenues.
Our dental centers serve approximately one million patient visits per year, primarily to children in communities with under-served access to dental care.After Channel 4 Action News WTAE-TV began an investigation on Small Smiles, the U.S. Senate filed a report saying that taxpayer dollars were wasted in Small Smiles and recommended that its Medicaid access be terminated.
