Beverly Wilburn, DAADOM, Office Manager at Karl A. Smith, DDS, LLC Periodontics and Implants

The Risky Health Care Business

What she does: Beverly is the office manager of Karl A. Smith, DDS, LLC Periodontics and Implants, a multi-site practice with locations in Virginia and Maryland. In addition to managing the practice full-time, she serves as an expert of dental business practices and standard of care in practice administration systems for several law firms across the US. She has provided expert witness testimony on behalf of the prosecution and defense at both the State and Federal level. Beverly is a Diplomate and Lifetime Member of the American Association of Dental Office Management (AADOM) and awarded the 2022 Dental Practice Administrator of the Year and is a recipient of a Denobi Award. She is the founder of Dental Spouses in Business™, the Executive Director for the Virginia Society of Periodontists, chapter president of AADOM's Dental Spouse Business Network as well as a member of three local chapters, and serves on the board for Dental Entrepreneur Woman.

On risk: "Risk is a possibility. It's not a fact. Risk is a thing, it's a factual thing. It's a possibility of something happening. And I think people have to remember that. A lot of people, when they hear the word risk, they assume it has some kind of negative connotation around it, and it really just means that we need to protect ourselves. It's a possibility that something could happen and we need to be aware of it. It's an awareness around situations that can happen, and it's a bringing to the forefront, a thought about making sure that we protect ourselves … When you're thinking about why do I have to be concerned about risk? It's ultimately because you want to protect your practice. You want to have longevity of the practice. If the practice doesn't survive, we now can't help people and help more patients … Part of the risk, part of where that comes to risk, is now we are having an access to care issue … Awareness is obviously number one, awareness of what risks can be, if things are in line and everybody's ducks are in a row and things are proceeding on, and you've got a good system in place, even when something does adversely happen, it's almost foolproof. You have the resources at your fingertips. You know what to do, when to do it. You're prepared and it helps to simplify knowing that risk is always going to be there. It simplifies the process when something does happen"