NBDE Professional Ethics and Management 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A dentist discovers a colleague is performing unnecessary procedures to increase revenue. What is the dentist's ethical obligation?
- Ignore it as it does not affect their practice
- Report the colleague to the state dental board (Correct answer)
- Confront the colleague privately and take no further action
- Alert patients of the other dentist directly
Correct answer: Report the colleague to the state dental board
Dentists have an ethical and often legal obligation to report colleagues engaging in fraudulent or harmful practices to the appropriate licensing authority.
Question 2: Which principle of dental ethics requires that a dentist act in the best interest of the patient?
- Autonomy
- Justice
- Beneficence (Correct answer)
- Nonmaleficence
Correct answer: Beneficence
Beneficence is the ethical principle that obligates practitioners to act for the patient's benefit and promote their well-being.
Question 3: A patient requests a copy of their dental records. Under HIPAA, the practice must provide records within:
- 7 days
- 30 days (Correct answer)
- 60 days
- 90 days
Correct answer: 30 days
HIPAA requires covered entities to provide patients access to their records within 30 days of the request, with a possible 30-day extension.
Question 4: In dental practice management, the accounts receivable turnover ratio is used to evaluate:
- Overhead costs relative to revenue
- How efficiently the practice collects payments (Correct answer)
- The number of new patients per month
- Staff productivity benchmarks
Correct answer: How efficiently the practice collects payments
Accounts receivable turnover measures how quickly a dental practice collects outstanding patient and insurance balances.
Question 5: A dentist treats a patient who later sues for negligence. The standard of care is determined by:
- The dentist's personal clinical training
- What a reasonably prudent dentist would do under similar circumstances (Correct answer)
- The most advanced techniques available nationally
- Guidelines set solely by dental school curricula
Correct answer: What a reasonably prudent dentist would do under similar circumstances
The legal standard of care in dental malpractice is defined as the care a reasonably competent dentist would provide under the same or similar circumstances.
Question 6: Which element is NOT required to establish dental negligence (malpractice)?
- Duty
- Breach
- Financial wealth of the dentist (Correct answer)
- Causation and damages
Correct answer: Financial wealth of the dentist
Malpractice requires duty, breach, causation, and damages; the dentist's financial status is legally irrelevant to establishing negligence.
Question 7: When a dental office uses a collection agency for unpaid bills, which statement is correct?
- Patient records must be shared in full with the agency
- Only the minimum necessary information should be provided (Correct answer)
- HIPAA does not apply to collection agencies
- Verbal authorization from the patient is sufficient
Correct answer: Only the minimum necessary information should be provided
Under HIPAA's minimum necessary standard, only the information required for the collection purpose (e.g., name, balance owed) should be disclosed to a collection agency.
NBDE Professional Ethics and Management 2
A dentist discovers a colleague is performing unnecessary procedures to increase revenue.
What is the dentist's ethical obligation?