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It all Depends on the Meaning of the Word
[See Part I]: https://healthcarefinancials.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/ada-%e2%80%9ctransparency%e2%80%9d-in-health-it-part-i/
By Darrell K. Pruitt; DDS
http://community.pennwelldentalgroup.com/forum/topic/show?id=2013420%3ATopic%3A14837
“If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“The Insulted and Humiliated” – 1861
A few days ago, San Antonio Express-News reporter Don Finley interviewed outgoing American Dental Association president Dr. Mark Feldman about the future of dentistry. Dr. Feldman lamented that the US presidential candidates have yet to mention dentists in their plans for healthcare. In fact, the title of the article is “Group wants dental health to be part of candidates’ talk.”
http://www.mysanantonio.com/health/31239029.html
ADA Plea’s “Not Reassuring”
As a dentist with an intense interest in maintaining complete control of the way I choose to practice dentistry, I have to say that Dr. Feldman’s groveling plea for attention was not reassuring. Others, including opportunists who would take advantage of my dental patients, are also watching. Those who are paying attention easily catch on to hints of weakness as well.
For example, Dr. Feldman must not have impressed San Antonio very much because immediately following the Express-News article, someone allowed two anonymous and very bitter people who hate dentists to post their comments, while rejecting at least three Texas dentists’ comments defending the profession. Anyone can see that the San Antonio Express-News openly scorns Dr. Mark Feldman and the ADA.
Not Defending the Dental Brand
It is no secret that the ADA never defends itself on the Internet. Time and again I proved that such negligence in protecting one’s brand creates a huge vulnerability. The pitiful part about low self-esteem is that those who work for the candidates also pick up on the weakness of our organization and see no political traction in concerning themselves with our patients’ interests.
Sadly, the once reliable respect does not look forthcoming for Dr. John Findley either. Nobody in the media noticed his arrival as president, so the ADA had to spend money to purchase a press release.
Assessment
Effective public relations on the Internet cannot be purchased, and defense of the ADA is hobbled by its obsolete command-and-control business model – an early example of a fat, slow-moving dinosaur facing the challenges of evolution in a transparent marketplace.
Conclusion
To me, the press release seems pitiful. We can do better. We must do better. Our patients are depending on us. We are the only ones who care for them. Your thoughts are appreciated; please opine and comment.
Publisher’s Comment:
Now, after reading this two part series, is there no one here to rid of us of this meddlesome dentist; or is he correct?
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I’ve been a bad boy!
Allow me to share with you the latest discoveries coming out of the PennWell Community College course “Social Networking – Advanced Studies” [not for credit].
http://community.pennwelldentalgroup.com/forum/topics/social-networking-advanced
I am aware that not everyone in my sphere is interested in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and its bastard, tactless, unshaven cousin, Unconventional PR Warfare (UPRW). However, I just know that some of my readers are just like me – fed up with bureaucratic lies and intensely interested in learning how to send unaccountable door-to-door salespeople on down the road – not only to improve the neighborhood, but just for grins.
If that is what interests you, then you probably will not find the following investigation tedious at all. I try my best to keep it as interesting as possible. You can bet that a handful of officials from the ADA as well as IDM are following it very closely – each high-ranked and shy individual quietly hoping that I won’t post something with their name on it. Which brings me to this question: I wonder who in the ADA was responsible for spearheading the drive to get members in bed with an insensitive advertisement firm called IDM. (Did I hear a groan from Chicago?)
The investigative thread that I present below is still in progress. It begins with a comment I posted on December 3 titled “A real-time puzzler.”
http://community.pennwelldentalgroup.com/forum/topics/social-networking-advanced?page=2&commentId=2013420%3AComment%3A20858&x=1#2013420Comment20858
For those who have a freakish interest in this kind of thing, you can catch the background there. For those with merely abnormal flaws in their personalities that cause them to want to watch things like train wrecks, it is not difficult to pick up the story from this morning’s continuation.
One additional note: There are links to several of my jagged posts that chafe good ol’ boys badly. Even if you don’t read the links, please do our neighborhood a civic favor and at least click on them. That would be really swell.
Update: Test A (7 AM Central, 12.5.08)
Thought-provoking stuff; the unusual occurrences – Is what we are seeing state-of-the-art PR defense, or is it a normal quirk of google search? Science is fun!
RESULTS
The critical comment concerning the ADA’s business relationship with Intelligent Dental Marketing from Search Engine Marketing (SEM) competitor, The Visible Dentist, has hardly moved at all.
http://www.thewealthydentist.com/blog/493/dentists-quitting-ada-due-to-political-differences/
Yesterday, the comment was IDM’s 22nd hit in a googlesearch – just ahead of my “Want to make a difference with a click?” at number 23. Since then, the Visible Dentist comment only moved to hit number 20 – an insignificant random jitter. However, my comment “Want to make a difference with a click” completely disappeared from the first ten pages (100 hits).
http://community.pennwelldentalgroup.com/forum/topics/social-networking-advanced?page=2&commentId=2013420%3AComment%3A20678&x=1#2013420Comment20678
Now, only one of my initial three hits remains, and it is hidden on page 4 (number 32) when anyone, including a potential ADA/IDM customer, performs a google search of Intelligent Dental Marketing. And something strange happened to it as well.
When one clicks the link titled “Social Networking-Advanced Studies,” it directs the reader to “BCBSTX Test Results” – one of my posts that does not mention Intelligent Dental Marketing at all.
http://community.pennwelldentalgroup.com/forum/topics/social-networking-advanced?page=1&commentId=2013420%3AComment%3A19972&x=1#2013420Comment19972
Something else that puzzles me is the mixed-up meta description under the BCBSTX link: “Good luck, Intelligent Dental Marketing … Intelligent Dental Marketing (IDM) has not yet responded to my three questions – even”.
The first part; “Good luck, Intelligent Dental Marketing” is content from Lesson four, “Trapping a slow-moving beast” – a very critical open email to IDM.
http://community.pennwelldentalgroup.com/forum/topics/social-networking-advanced?page=1&commentId=2013420%3AComment%3A19917&x=1#2013420Comment19917
The second part of the meta, “Intelligent Dental Marketing (IDM) has not yet responded to my three questions – even …” is from Lesson five, “Using Google Strategically.”
http://community.pennwelldentalgroup.com/forum/topics/social-networking-advanced?page=2&commentId=2013420%3AComment%3A20107&x=1#2013420Comment20107
The keywords in the hit did not correspond to the link. Instead, the link re-directs the reader to my criticism of BCBSTX, as described in a comment I posted on the Executive Post titled, “The NPI and One DDS’s Opinion.”
https://healthcarefinancials.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/the-npi-and-one-dds%e2%80%99s-opinion/#comment-2075
DISCUSSION
I imagine that BCBSTX is not too happy about this circumstance, regardless of the cause. They would rather keep my Executive Post comment hidden as much as Intelligent Dental Marketing would like to keep “Cutting and branding a trapped beast” buried. (That is the one that I ended with: “I happened to learn about branding as a youngster decades before I learned about metaphors. Branding is an additional way to keep newly-formed steers in their place.
http://community.pennwelldentalgroup.com/forum/topics/time-is-up-intelligent-dental?page=1&commentId=2013420%3AComment%3A20574&x=1#2013420Comment20574
ADDITIONAL RESEARCH
I became curious about what lies between Intelligent Dental Marketing’s number one google search hit and their first critical comment – the one from The Visible Dentist at number 20. Here is what I found:
– The first three hits are advertisements sponsored by the ADA. There are two other deeper ADA hits, which brings the ADA-sponsored ads to 5.
– Not counting the ADA’s ads, there are 10 various Internet ads for Intelligent Dental Marketing, including 3 specifically for SEM.
– There is 1 link to a Columbia University Dental Associates website which is a legal disclosure to protect Intelligent Marketing from lawsuits arising from misunderstandings of what IDM can and cannot do for dentists.
– There are 2 hits for booksellers – both on the first page. They are Amazon.com and America’s Dental Bookstore links which advertise Intelligent Dental Marketing founder, Joel Harris’ book on dental marketing. I wonder if he discusses “Search Engine Optimization” in his books.
-There is 1 link to a dental blogger named Gregory (Flap) Cole; DDS, who approves of the ADA – IDM business partnership.
PROJECT PROPOSAL
It would be interesting to get Dr. Flap Cole’s opinion, which is 180 degrees counter to mine, posted on the PennWell forum.
Update: Test A (9 AM, 12.5.08)
RESULTS
Thanks to help from readers, my comment from two days ago, “Intelligent Dental Marketing disappoints ADA member Darrell Pruitt DDS” showed up on IDM’s first page this morning around nine o’clock.
http://community.pennwelldentalgroup.com/forum/topics/intelligent-dental-marketing
I imagine if IDM SEO geniuses are somehow fighting against my unconventional PR, they won’t have time to ski this weekend because they will be working overtime.
PROPOSAL
I’ll watch what happens to it.
– Will the popularity of my devastating comment suddenly drop two or three pages like my other comments did?
– Will the meta-description somehow end up with a link to BCBSTX again?
– Will anyone at BCBSTX get really pissed if the popularity of “The NPI and One DDS’s Opinion” that is posted on the Executive Post again increases because of readers hitting its link?
https://healthcarefinancials.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/the-npi-and-one-dds%e2%80%99s-opinion/#comment-2075
This is getting more and more interesting the deeper I plow.
Update: Test B (3 PM, 12.5.08)
The rank of my comment mentioning Trajan King has not moved from the number nine hit more than 24 hours after I posted a link to “Time’s up,” in which I offered the CEO of Intelligent Dental Marketing, that I (we) could help increase his fame.
http://community.pennwelldentalgroup.com/forum/topics/social-networking-advanced?page=1&commentId=2013420%3AComment%3A20549&x=1#2013420Comment20549
-Darrell K. Pruitt; DDS
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Attention Allscripts,
I posted this follow-up to my last comment “Electronic Health Records and Tyranny.”
http://community.pennwelldentalgroup.com/forum/topics/electronic-health-records-and?page=1&commentId=2013420%3AComment%3A21533&x=1#2013420Comment21533
I could say that stimulating discussion on this forum is like pulling teeth – except that I am good at pulling teeth.
Maybe another quote or two from the inflammatory article by Bloomberg reporter Alex Nussbaum will start a fire somewhere. Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts, is a real piece of work. I think he is a typical vulnerable lightweight who shuns transparency in traditional ways. I also think that together, we can easily trap this slow-moving dinosaur. It will be fun trying, and after all, it’s the American thing to do.
According to Bloomberg reporter Alex Nussbaum, Tullman thinks Obama should expand on reforms passed this year in Congress. “Those changes give doctors a 2 percent increase in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements if they use electronic prescriptions. A 2 percent penalty will kick in within two years for doctors who don’t follow suit.”
Even though the rest of the nation’s economy is in the drink, Tullman boasted that Allscripts has seen a fivefold increase in the number of U.S. doctors using its electronic prescribing software. His company is the largest U.S. provider of software to doctors. I think that makes him royalty or something.
Nussbaum reports that Tullman says he thinks that future federal spending should be tied to physicians’ use of the system, and perhaps come in the form of loans, “to ensure doctors have some skin in the game.”
This is worth repeating: Glen Tullman thinks that providers should have to take out loans to buy his product “to ensure that doctors have some skin in the game.”
Are you feeling the itch yet?
Remember, Glen Tullman is the CEO of Allscripts, and was addressing a forum sponsored by Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. and Leerink Swann & Co. This won’t make you feel any better: Shortly after Tillman pronounced his vision of our future, Allscripts stocks rose 35 cents (almost 5 percent).
Seriously, just how does Tullman make you feel?
You can tell me.
I’m a doctor.
D. Kellus Pruitt; DDS
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Dear Dr. Pruitt,
It has come to my attention that you are attempting to engage the dental community at large in an all-out war of sorts against the impropriety of the ADA/IDM business partnership. You even went so far as to mention yours truly and my website in your assaults.
How dare you sir work to expose such malfeasance on your own! Have you lost leave of your senses? What makes you think dentists in general even care what the ADA does with their dues, or that the IDA may be scamming them?
Apparently sir you are watching far too little TV these days and thus you seem to have adopted some odd sense of responsibility and honor which frankly, is in direct opposition to the country’s epidemic corruption.
Unless you prefer people remember you as moral, just and altruistic, I suggest you give up this campaign important to so many people and indulge in something less idealistic. Try pursuing some shallow, self-serving interests. Millions do these days and it serves them quite well.
Stand down from this insanity; quit at once; you cannot hope to win against the overpowering forces of pure evil. Just forget about it and move on; there’s nothing more you can do to make a difference.
Wait a second…
On second thought — give ’em hell Pruitt — give ’em goddamn hell!!!
John Barremore
http://www.thevisibledentist.com
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Dear John,
Thanks; we both agree. I am having far too much fun for a professional.
It is easy to see that it is transparently wrong for my non-profit ADA organization to be in business with an entity which shares profits derived from membership – even if it lowers members’ dues … especially if it lowers dues. Even now I cannot engage ADA leaders in open, real-time discussion of important and urgent issues. Imagine how unresponsive the bureaucracy will be when it doesn’t need membership dues at all.
We suffer from a creeping malignancy in the ADA that has overtaken the mission of my once proud organization. I intend to excise this lesion radically, no matter how deep I have to cut, and no matter how long as it takes.
Hurt feelings don’t concern me much. The self-perpetuating bureaucracy has been too fat for too long. It is time to downsize the American Dental Association and squeeze it back into the confines of its mission as a lean, hungry, responsive voice for dentists and patients. Silence is obsolete defense these days for fat dinosaurs, and I will prove it.
ADA/IDM should already know that each time an ad dressed up as an article with no byline appears in my ADA News, I will bring it to the attention of everyone I can, including commentary and strategic links. Count on it.
In addition, just for grins, I will incessantly repeat asking my three unanswered questions to IDM until silence from a huge advertising firm becomes a well-known industry joke.
And of course there is the perpetual SEO (Search Engine Optimization) lesson I am teaching IDM CEO Trajan King.
I promised Trajan that I would make him famous for bothering me at work with a phone call instead of responding to my three questions online. Apart from the obvious entertainment, I am doing this as a community service to deter further rudeness in my neighborhood from other good ol’ boys.
I just googlesearched “Trajan King.” The CEO’s second hit behind his LinkedIn site is “Trajan King, Intelligent Dental Marketing and SEO Tricks.”
http://community.pennwelldentalgroup.com/forum/topics/trajan-king-intelligent-dental
I can only imagine that my caustic thread infuriates Mr. King, but there is simply nothing he can do about it – other than to surrender to accountability and respond online. As it turns out, I am far better at SEO than Intelligent Dental Marketing.
Thanks for the comments on this Medical Executive-Post, John Barremore.
The Visible Dentist is my kind of vendor.
-D. Kellus Pruitt DDS
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Dr. Pruitt,
Here is some information about general health related programs so that patients can chat with a doctor about eyesight and consult on various other health issues too:
http://www.uniteforsight.org/volunteer-abroad/dates-others
Shorey
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