Need Shadowing Help [HIPPA Problems]!

[DrTacoElf]

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Hey all. I plan on applying June 1. Taking my DAT in July. I need some shadowing experience in a dental office so i contacted my local dentist and here is what i ran into 🙁

Due to a new HIPPA regulation and new liability insurance we can not have you unless your have an official status and are covered by an insurance. I suggest you contact the medical college of GA, and see if they have a program that will allow you to observe.

Any suggestions guys, i've called MCG and they dont have any formal programs. Is this HIPPA crap something i'm going to run into at every private practice. How does anyone shadow!

 

[UBTom]

TacoElf:

Some large medical centers have dental, oral surgery, or pediatric dentistry departments. You might want to sign up to be a hospital volunteer and see if you can do your volunteer work in one of those departments if there is one in your neck of the woods. Becoming a hospital volunteer should make you HIPAA-compliant, at least within the hospital.

Luck.

 

[DrTacoElf]

Thanks for the info. I"ve already shadowed in an ER, and gained little if anything from it. Basically just the fact that i hate hospitals. i want my own practice one day. I feel that being in a private setting one-on-one with a dentist would be optimal for getting a LOR and learning a ****load of stuff quickly (both buiness sense, insurance sense, and protocols).

 

[UBTom]

My advice to you:

Do what you can to fulfill any shadowing requirements first, even if it means volunteering at a hospital if you have no luck with private practices. Once you got that out of the way, you can explore shadowing private-practice dentists to your heart's content.

You got to prioritize.

HTH.

 

[Teething Beauty]

I think that the office where you went to was just anal about the whole HIPPA law. None of the offices that I have shadowed have ever mentioned to me that I cannot shadow them because of any HIPPA violations. Just try some other office. Write them a nice letter letting them know why it is that you want to shadow them and how you are a pre-dental student who wants to acquire some dental knowledge...this always works!

Most dentists really want to help out students, just show them your interested in the field of dentistry and this should really get you in the door!!!

Good luck! 👍

 

[trypmo]

I think I got through the HIPPA stuff by being an official member of my university's ASDA Pre-Dental Association. I did have to sign and remit two forms, a confidentiality agreement and another agreement of some kind that they'd kick me out if I did x, y, or z obnoxious things. If there's such an organized student group at your school that might do it as far as an "official" status.

Volunteering at a hospital might be a cool thing to do anyway, though, so I think that's a great idea too.

Best of luck!

 

[Calculus1]

Call around until you find a dentist that doesn't mention anything about it. The truth is, if the dentist asks the patient and the patient agrees, his office becomes a temporary classroom. This is what the dean of admissions at two schools have told me as well as my buddy who ran into a similar problem(which was later resolved by telling the dentist in question about the loophole).

 

[marshall]

All the above are true. Plus I think if you are technically part of the dentist's staff, you are privy to all that the man would keep you from. You could always go for an older dentist that may not care as much about the gubmint.

 

[Presidental]

i never had that problem. keep asking around. once you find one dentist, he/she will open up new doors to shadow other dentists/specialists.