When can assistants and hygienists start packing and carving?
That’s a question that a lot of dentists, hygienists and assistants are asking, now that our legislators in Juneau have approved House Bill 319. The not so simple answer is not until our Alaska Board of Dental Examiners writes the regulations, the public comments on those regulations, the comments are reviewed and the board decides if revisions are in order and the final regulations are approved. Then the board will have to coordinate with the Western Regional Examining Board (WREB) and establish a process by which qualified candidates can submit applications to WREB to take, and hopefully pass, a WREB administered examination. Candidates will also have to wait for WREB to determine when it will offer the appropriate examinations in Alaska, or if they are qualified and want to take an earlier examine in another state – say Washington or Oregon.
According to Brenda Donohue, the chief administrator for the Board of Dental Examiners, the process of implementing what has been authorized by the adoption of HB-319 by the legislature could take between a year to 18-months.
When the House of Representatives voted to accept the amendments made by the Senate, that was the next to last step in the legislative process. HB-319 will be sent to Gov. Sarah Palin for her signature. There is no reason to think that she will veto the bill. She is expected to sign the bill (if she isn’t busy changing diapers). If she doesn’t sign the bill, it will become law without her signature in 20 days (not including Sundays) after it officially arrives in her office. Depending upon the day of the week the bill arrives in her office, 20 days (not including Sundays) can be 23 to 25 calendar days.
The first opportunity the Board of Dental Examiners will have to initiate the process of writing regulations to set this process in action is June 27, when it next meets in Anchorage. According to Donohue, this year’s legislation generated a lot of work for the regulation writers in the Department of Occupational Licensing. Unless someone with a lot of political clout calls the office of the regulator writers, the dental board’s regulations for HB-319 will go to the end of what is likely to be a long line and move forward no faster than the system is moving. There are a number of potential detours that regulations can be forced to take, all of which delay the process of final approval and implementation. The most notable is the need to revise following either the public comment period or as a result of a trip to the desk of an attorney in the Department of Law to adjust some provision that is unclear from a legal stand point or creates a conflict with statutes or existing regulations.
The matter of WREB is initially less fraught with potential delays. According to the Director of Dental Exam Operations for WREB, Linda Paul, there is an exam in place that is likely to meet all of the needs and more importantly the requirements which our dental board should be expected to put in place. Therefore it is possible, that WREB could be examining qualified Alaska assistants and hygienists as soon as next May (2009) when it conducts a WREB exam at the University of Alaska—Anchorage campus.
Until the regulations are approved and the requisite educational and training is completed and the test successfully passed and the certification received from Juneau, dentists, their assistants and hygienists will have to wait patiently for the bureaucratic wheels to turn.
