Dental Quality Assurance Commission
The Dental Quality Assurance Commission (DQAC) is empowered by the Legislature to license, regulate and discipline dentists, dental assistants and expanded function dental auxiliaries. It does not govern dental hygienists, except for rules authorizing delegation of functions by a dentist to a hygienist.
Contact DQAC
Program Director: Jennifer Santiago
Health Systems Quality Assurance
Customer Service Center
PO Box 1099
Olympia WA 98507-1099
Email: jennifer.santiago@doh.wa.gov
Site: http://www.doh.wa.gov/hsqa/professions/Dental/default.htm
Phone: (360) 236 - 4893
Fax: (360) 236 - 4818
DQAC Update July 17, 2011
New rules are effective July 1, 2011, that require dentists to obtain, evaluate, and document a patient’s health history in the health record before prescribing opioids for patients who have chronic non-cancer pain. This rule does not affect many dentists because they do not apply when prescribing medication to patients with acute pain or for palliative, hospice or other end-of-life care.
However, the new rules require dentists to obtain a consultation with a pain management specialist for the patient in the event that a dentist intends to prescribe a dosage amount of opioids that meets or exceeds 120 milligrams MED per day for patients who have chronic non-cancer pain.
Washington State will soon be rolling out a Prescription Monitoring Program. The program’s purpose is to identify and stop prescription drug misuse by collecting all the records for schedule II, III, IV, and V drugs. This information is then made available to dentists and all other medical providers who have prescribing authority as a tool in patient care.
The new program will require dentists, who distribute schedule II, III, IV, and V drugs to patients in office, to report that distribution to a yet to be created state website. This rule will only impact the small amount of dentists who distribute drugs in office.
The state is holding a public hearing for the proposed rules on June 27th.
DQAC is working to implement legislation allowing for military training to substitute for EFDA education. They first need to review military training curriculum before they move forward.