374 - Private Practice Management Training in Pediatric Dental Residency Programs.

Purpose: The purpose of this cross-sectional, prospective study is to determine whether pediatric dental residency programs provide sufficient training and resources in business and legal aspects of practice management. It also aims to shed light on what aspects of practice management, if any, pediatric dental residency programs provide training and resources on, and whether there is a generational difference in preparation in and pursuit of careers in private practice.

Methods: A cross-sectional, prospective study was conducted via survey sent by email to 8,475 active members of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) who are currently enrolled in or fully completed a pediatric dental residency in the United States. The survey consisted of 12 questions assessing participants’ training and preparation in financial and legal aspects of private practice management during their pediatric dental residency programs. The survey was hosted by SurveyMonkey to meet security standards for the transmission of online data; transport layer security protocol is used to encrypt and transmit data which are frequently backed up in an encrypted storage. Frequency and statistical analyses were conducted for all study variables. Data collected and analyzed was maintained on password protected computer with encrypted storage.

Discussion: The majority of participants were either current residents or recent graduates having less than five years of experience. Approximately 40% of the participants did not receive any financial or legal seminars, with nearly the rest receiving no more than one to three seminars in such topics. The four most common topics that participants had received training on were Patient Management, Insurance/Billing, Legal, and Investment/Loans. In comparison, the four most desired topics of training were Taxes, Legal, Basic Accounting, and Insurance/Billing. While it seems residency programs may provide more training on day-to-day operations (e.g. Patient Management, Insurance/Billing, Legal), there may be a lack of preparation in building skill sets needed for practice ownership and/or employment. The biggest deficits are in Taxes, Basic Accounting, HR, Location Analytics, Marketing, and Investment/Loans.

Results: A chi-square test was run cross-tabulating survey question one (“How many years have you been practicing pediatric dentistry”) with question twelve (“Do you believe that incorporating a CODA- mandated curriculum on the business and legal aspect of private practice would be beneficial addition to pediatric residency programs?”), divided into two categories each (chi square = 4.82). The result was statistically significant with p value <.05 (p=.028).