Private-equity driven dentists accused of "dentally abusing" poor kids on Medicaid with painful, unnecessary procedures
Private-equity driven dentists accused of "dentally abusing" poor kids on Medicaid with painful, unnecessary procedures
Hedge funds in America have backed several dental practices, and Medicaid and parents allege that this has led to a rash of “dental abuse” of poor children, who are seen by dentists at school, without parental consent, for invasive and painful (and expensive) procedures performed by dentists. Critics say the dentists have to meet quotas in order to attain the valuations set by the private equity funds who call the shots. A North Carolina bill aimed at fighting this practice is being fought by three funds (Leonard Green, Court Square Capital Partners, and Levine Leichtman Capital Partners) who’ve raised $1.1 million to kill it.
Sydney P. Freedberg writes in Bloomberg:
Isaac Gagnon stepped off the school bus sobbing last October and opened his mouth to show his mother where it hurt.
She saw steel crowns on two of the 4-year-old’s back teeth. A dentist’s statement in his backpack showed he had received two pulpotomies, or baby root canals, along with the crowns and 10 X-rays — all while he was at school. Isaac, who suffers from seizures from a brain injury in infancy, didn’t need the work, according to his mother, Stacey Gagnon…
In August 2010, Green’s lawyer appeared before the Arizona dental board to answer a complaint that ReachOut did unnecessary drilling on a Phoenix student’s teeth — even after the student’s mother told the company she was seeing a family dentist and didn’t need any work…
There were two children with the same name at the school, and the work was done on the wrong Sabrina Martinez, Green’s lawyer, Jeff Tonner, told the dental board. Although the board agreed that work was done on the wrong child, it dismissed the case, noting Davila had complained about “the business entity,” not a dentist…
In San Diego, Tina Richardson’s third grader, Alexander Henry, came home in March with four baby teeth missing after a school session with a ReachOut-affiliated dentist that was so painful he “waved his arms frantically,” “pushed everyone off him” and “bled so badly that they had to send him to the nurse’s office,” according to her complaint with the state dental board. Among other things, Richardson said the consent process wasn’t valid.
Richardson said Alexander had seen a dentist nine days earlier who didn’t recommend any teeth pulling. Although she signed a consent form in September covering many procedures including extractions, she said she didn’t sign another one that came in November seeking permission to take out three teeth. No one from ReachOut called to discuss the proposed procedures, she said.
Dental Abuse Seen Driven by Private Equity Investments
(via Naked Capitalism)
(Image: Reeve 12265, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 27337026@N03′s photostream)
Live nude planets!
Live nude planets!
Rachel Hobson says: “Who needs to watch a web cam of baby pandas when you can watch Venus live?
Welcome to the Public Observatory channel, where you can see live video of the Sun, moon, or the planets taken through one of our telescopes. The Public Observatory is located at the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
This month, the Observatory is open to visitors from 1-3 p.m. EDT, Wednesday through Saturday, weather permitting. During these hours we will often stream live video through one of our telescopes so that you can see what we’re looking at!
Smithsonian Public Observatory Project
Germany: Riot police clear Occupy Frankfurt (photo)
Germany: Riot police clear Occupy Frankfurt (photo)
REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
German riot police carry a demonstrator fully covered in paint as police clears the camp of occupy protestors in front of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, May 16, 2012.
State Dept. snubs blog of Foreign Service spouse in breast cancer treatment for using n-word: "nipple."
State Dept. snubs blog of Foreign Service spouse in breast cancer treatment for using n-word: "nipple."
My pal Anthony Citrano points to this outrageous story, and says: “The State Department says their staff should blog about ‘individual stories’, but this bullshit about your new nipple is just too much.”
The tl;dr: Jennifer Dinoia, who is married to a foreign service agent, maintained a family blog that was promoted on the State Department website. She wote about her experience in treatment for breast cancer. All was fine with the blog, and its inclusion in the State Dept.’s official blogroll, until she wrote a post detailing nipple construction after mastectomy.
From Ms. DiNoia’s blog post, after she realized her story was no longer welcome:
Sunday evening, when I noticed the blog missing, I wrote to the online specialist who had contacted me way back when. The next day I heard from a new community specialist. I was told in no uncertain terms that my blog does not have “content relevant to the U.S. Foreign Service”. When I replied back with a description of the content that is more than related, I received a response from yet another new person. The response from that person?
Hopefully, you can understand that some topics covered in your blog are very personal in nature, e.g. nipple cozies, and wouldn’t necessarily resonate with the majority of potential candidates who are interested in learning about the FS life overseas. Through our years of recruitment experience, we found that FS prospects want to learn more about the work that’s conducted, the people and cultures with whom they will interact, the travel experiences, and the individual stories our employees* have to share.
Oh! They want travel experiences and individual stories. I’m sorry, have I not been providing that information?
So you mean describing stories about life after a diagnosis of breast cancer while your FS husband is serving in Iraq on an unaccompanied tour 6,219 miles away is not an individual story? You mean detailing how you got through said issue, how you managed to pick yourself up off the floor each day despite feeling like your world had completely fallen apart (oh, wait, it had) and managed to somehow dust yourself off and keep going with your Foreign Service life is of no interest? Guess that means I am the *only* one who will ever have to deal with such a thing.
Lisa Rein has more at the Washington Post.
Sky Alchemist: steampunk puzzle game with a gender twist
Sky Alchemist: steampunk puzzle game with a gender twist
Ethan sez,
Me and my colleague, Alexandra Keller, gave up our day jobs as web geeks to write this game, and almost two years later we finally have it:Sky Alchemist – a puzzle game about transforming impure matter into pure forms, using heaters, coolers, and breakers, phase-specific collectors, and a centrifuge. We tried to be as scientifically accurate as possible – the heat capacities, hardnesses, and so on are taken from real data wherever we could find it.
It’s set in a rich world – a human society that has achieved “Victorian-level” technology, but with a twist – women are the dominant gender. We hope to expand more on this in future releases of the game.
He also notes that it’s DRM-free.
Pentagon declassifies Styrofoam model of bin Laden compound, at last
Pentagon declassifies Styrofoam model of bin Laden compound, at last
A styrofoam-and-acrylic model of Osama bin Laden’s compound that was used to plan the May 2011 raid that killed the al Qaeda leader has been declassified by the Pentagon.
CNN reports that the model of OBL’s building and surrounding farmland in Abbotabad, Pakistan was built over a six-week period, and then was taken to the White House to brief President Obama on plans. After the raid, it sat on display in the lobby of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency in Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
Until last week, the model was considered classified and only those working or visiting the building could see it.
Now it is declassified, and agency officials wanted to bring it over to the Pentagon for a brief time to show it off to Department of Defense “customers” to highlight what the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency can do for them, according to an agency information sheet.
The to-scale diorama helped the Navy Seals literally measure the steps it would take to get to bin Laden.
More photos and background here: The very model of a successful bin Laden raid
(CNN.com, via Kristie LuStout).
The beautiful shapes of neurons
The beautiful shapes of neurons
I had no idea that neurons came in such a beautiful diversity of shapes. Each of these neurons has a different function, too: A. Purkinje cell B. Granule cell C. Motor neuron D. Tripolar neuron E. Pyramidal Cell F. Chandelier cell G. Spindle neuron H. Stellate cell.
The image, drawn by science journalist Ferris Jabr, comes from a post of his on the Brainwaves blog, explaining the discovery of the neuron—and the first realizations that not all neurons looked the same. It’s the first part of a new series he’s working on called “Know Your Neuron”.
When the leading anatomists of the 19th century examined fragile nervous tissue with the best microscopes available to them, they identified cell bodies that sprouted many tangled projections. German histologist Joseph Gerlach’s observations convinced him that the fibers emerging from different cell bodies fused to form a continuous network, a seamless web known as the “reticulum.” His ideas were popular. Many researchers accepted that, unlike the heart or liver, the brain and nervous system could not be split up into distinct structural units.
In 1873, Italian physician Camillo Golgi discovered a chemical reaction that allowed him to examine nervous tissue in much greater detail than ever before. For some reason, hardening a piece of brain in potassium dichromate, and subsequently dousing it with silver nitrate, dyed only a few cell bodies and their respective projections in the tissue sample, revealing their complete structures and exact arrangement within the unstained tissue. If the reaction had stained all the neurons in a sample, Golgi would have been left with an unfathomable black blotch, as though someone had spilled a bottle of ink. Instead, his technique yielded neat black silhouettes against a translucent yellow background.
Read the rest of Know Your Neuron: The Discovery and Naming of the Neuron
In the NYT, a judge who has cancer argues for the legalization of medical marijuana
In the NYT, a judge who has cancer argues for the legalization of medical marijuana
Admittedly, I am biased, but New York state supreme court judge Gustin L. Reichbach speaks for me when he writes in a New York Times op-ed today that medical marijuana “is not a law-and-order issue; it is a medical and a human rights issue.”
Like me, justice Reichbach has cancer. He has pancreatic cancer, and a prognosis that involves a short window of survival, and great pain and suffering during treatment.
“Medical science has not yet found a cure,” he writes, “but it is barbaric to deny us access to one substance that has proved to ameliorate our suffering.”
Read it and demand change: A Judge’s Plea for Medical Marijuana.
(NYT, via Clayton Cubitt)
Donna Summer, RIP
Donna Summer, RIP
One of the greats is gone. Donna Summer died of cancer this morning in Florida, according to reports. The Queen of Disco was 63.
Summer was born and raised in Boston, and first sang in her church’s gospel choir. She went on to perform in the touring production of “Hair,” and met producer/songwriter and electronic music pioneer Giorgio Moroder in 1974.
About “I Feel Love
The singer who went on to win five Grammys ascended to diva status in the seventies with hits like “Love to Love You Baby
Two must-listens today: This Fresh Air interview with Summer, and this Tavis Smiley interview on NPR, both in 2003 when she was promoting her memoir, Ordinary Girl: The Journey
(Thanks, @drdawkins09)
Optical illusion tees look different depending on your perspective
Optical illusion tees look different depending on your perspective
Answersquestions sez, “These shirts designed by an Architecture professor friend of mine at Carnegie Mellon depend on perspective and distance in order to be seen. Check out that SKULL!”
Most tees are the same: splashy graphic or logo centered on a shirt for others to read. Vantage Tees are site-specific art pieces using optical illusions and body-specific effects to change everything about how people interact with their attire. Some shirts look different if you are looking at them or wearing them. Some ask you to be really close or really far. Others take time to see them. Vantage Tees will look different to everyone—it all depends on your vantage point.
(Thanks, Answersquestions!)
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