Prohibits the use of patient quotas for selecting dental treatments

BILL NUMBER:A10943

Title of bill

An act to amend the public health law, in relation to prohibiting the use of patient quotas for selecting dental treatments

Purpose or general idea of bill

Prohibits manufacturers from condition- ing the use of any dental drug, device or service based on a quota of patients the dentist treats with the item.

Summary of specific provisions

Amends Public Health Law § 206 by adding a new subdivision 27 that would prohibit manufacturers and other enti- ties from requiring dentists to use their drugs, devices, or services on a specific quota of patients in order to obtain the drug, device, or service, and would also prohibit dentists from requesting or accepting items that carried such patient quotas as a condition of use.

Justification

Dentists should have access to all necessary treatment modalities to serve their patients and should be able to choose those modalities based on the clinical needs of the patient in the profes- sional judgment of the dentist, not based on the need to meet a manufac- turer's numerical quota.

Certain manufacturers of drugs, dental devices, and other dental treat- ment services are beginning to use quotas as a marketing practice. They will not provide a drug, device, or treatment service to a dentist unless the dentist commits to using the product on a specific quota of patients. This practice interferes with the professional judgment of the dentist and is harmful to patients.

Unless a dentist is willing to commence unnecessary treatments just to meet a quota, the dentist may lose access to the treatment modality for, patients who would best benefit from it. Alternatively, the dentist may be forced to use treatments that are not the best treatment option for certain patients, because of being unable to access the best option due to failure to meet a quota. Quotas undermine professionalism and are a blatant attempt to boost sales at the expense of patients.

Quota requirements are anticompetitive and often tend to raise the cost of services to patients, because they reduce the number of dentists who can provide the treatment to the patient. For example, one.company requires that a dentist must use its orthodontic treatment modality on at least ten patients per year in order to obtain access to the treat- ment. Most general dentists would not use this treatment modality on that many patients in a given year, so the net effect of the quota is either to drive patients to more expensive specialists who might use the treatment modality more often or else to have general dentists needless- ly use the treatment more often just to-fill the quota.

Some manufacturers have tried to disguise such quotas as "product profi- ciency" or "quality control" mechanisms. These so-called quality justi- fications have no data or studies to back them up. The quota system is a

marketing tactic that rewards manufacturers for promoting inefficient and potentially inappropriate care.

Prior legislative history

None,

Fiscal implications

None.

Effective date

Immediately.