2025 AAOM/EAOM Joint Meeting: Practice Management Workshop

The Nuts and Bolts for a Burgeoning Oral Medicine Career Path and Practice
Saturday May 17
1:00 PM-4:00 PM

The majority of the didactic components will be offered online and will be available two months prior to the AAOM meeting. Only a portion of the didactic component along with the interactive sessions will be offered in person during the meeting. 

This workshop will provide comprehensive sessions with experts in building oral medicine practice. Experts will share practical guidance and in-depth details to help early and mid-career practitioners establish and maintain a thriving oral medicine practice. Pre-registration with extra fees and completion of the prerecorded didactic portion of this workshop is a prerequisite to attend the hands-on in person session. 

Prerecorded didactic portion

Lecture #1 Title: Oral Medicine: An Ever-Evolving Practice

Duration: 1 hour

Synopsis: The reciprocal interaction between the specialty of Oral Medicine and other healthcare specialties to serve the evolving patient’s need has contributed to the progressive nature of oral medicine practice. This talk focuses on means to boost and sustain your ever-evolving practice demands.

Speaker: Iquebal Hasan, DDS, FNAP
Dean of Academic Affairs, Professor of Diagnostic Science

Learning Objectives: 

1. Understand the methods for initiating and maintaining collaborative and reciprocal interaction with other healthcare specialties.
2. Appreciate the need to embrace new treatment modalities and technological advancement to fulfill the evolving patients’ demand.
3. Explore the means to boost and sustain progressive oral medicine practice.

Lecture #2 Title: Oral Medicine practice models – Career path 1: Where to start after residency?

Duration: 1 hour

Synopsis: Pursuing a career in oral medicine is often faced with challenges not commonly addressed during the years of residency. The complexity of balancing clinical, teaching, and administrative duties while maintaining scholarly productivity and national engagement is a tough mission to achieve. This talk discusses the challenges young oral medicine practitioners may face at the early stages of their careers.

Speaker: Katrina Myers, DDS

Learning objectives:

1. Navigate the challenges young oral medicine graduates may face at the beginning of their careers.
2. Learn the best strategies to understand, acclimate, and grow into your new work environment.
3. Explore the opportunities that will take your oral medicine career to the next level. 

Lecture #3 Title: Oral Medicine practice models – Career Path 2: Hospitals and Medical Centers

Duration: 1 hour

Synopsis: This talk provides basic understanding to the unique nature of Oral Medicine practice and how it can be successfully integrated within the hospital system.

Speaker: Ken Ikeda, DDS, MPH

Learning objectives:

1. Understand the various hospital practice models currently existing.
2. Recognize the barriers to establishing/sustaining hospital-based oral medicine practice.
3. Appreciate the specific prerequisite, skillsets, and personnel required to integrate and operate a successful hospital-based practice. 

Lecture #4 Title:  Oral Medicine practice models – Career Path 3: Academia

Duration: 1 hour

Synopsis: Due to the unique, and unconventional, nature of the specialty of oral medicine, those joining academia may face several obstacles when it comes to establishing their clinical practices while fulfilling their teaching and administrivia duties.

Speaker: Milda Chmieliauskaite, DMD, MPH
Assistant Professor, Oral Medicine 
Director, Oral Medicine Graduate Program 
Attending, Oral Medicine Clinical Services, University of Washington 

Learning objectives:

1. Highlight the lack of oral medicine specialty/departments across many of the USA dental schools despite the existing demand.
2. Discuss the various constraints that may limit the establishment of new, and the expansion of existing, oral medicine departments in academic institutions. 
3. Provide a guide for building the infrastructure for oral medicine in academia and how to achieve balance between educational duties and clinical practice. 

Lecture #5 Title: Oral Medicine: Market Demands and Practice Models

Duration: 1 hour

Synopsis: This talk familiarizes attendees with the various models of oral medicine practice and how these models may meet the existing market demand.

Speaker: Ernesta Parisi, DMD

Learning objectives:

1. Familiarize with the various oral medicine practice models currently existing.
2. Understand how an oral medicine practice should be tailored to meet the marketplace demand.
3. Appreciate the barriers, prerequisite, and skillsets to operate a successful practice. 

Lecture #6 Title: Oral Medicine Private Practice Set-up

Duration: 30 minutes

Synopsis: This lecture highlights the building blocks for establishing a private practice in oral medicine and touches on the available opportunities and current challenges to establish and run such a practice.

Speaker: Jaisri Thoppay  DDS, MBA, MS
Center for Integrative Oral Health

Learning objectives

1. Understand what it takes to establish an oral medicine private practice. 
2. Recognizing the opportunities and challenges of establishing private oral medicine practice in the community.
3. Explore the cost of running an oral medicine practice and its financial sustainability. 

Lecture #7 Title: Oral Medicine Practice: Building your Team

Duration: 30 minutes

Synopsis: This session covers the fundamentals of staff management and interprofessional communication in private practice.

Speaker: Jaisri Thoppay  DDS, MBA, MS
Center for Integrative Oral Health

Learning objectives

1. Understand the best modalities/strategies for staff recruitment, training, and retention.
2. Appreciate the cruciality of team building and professional communication.
3. Explore the opportunities of incorporating AI to boost the flow of your practice. 

Lecture #8 Title: Leveraging Social Media and Artificial Intelligence for Building and Managing a Modern Oral Medicine Practice

Duration: 30 minutes

Synopsis: In an increasingly digital world, social media and artificial intelligence (AI) offer powerful tools for oral medicine practitioners to enhance patient care, build a strong professional brand, and manage their practices more efficiently. This lecture will explore the integration of these technologies into a modern oral medicine practice.

Speaker: Jaisri Thoppay  DDS, MBA, MS
Center for Integrative Oral Health

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the Role of Social Media in Oral Medicine
2. Explore AI Applications in Oral Medicine modern practice
3. Implement Strategies for Digital Practice Management 

Lecture #9 Title: Financial Literacy, Stability, and Wellbeing: Part 1

Duration: 30 minutes

Synopsis: Participants will gain a foundational understanding of personal financial literacy and its interplay with professional satisfaction and well-being. This session will lay the groundwork for exploring career opportunities and financial strategies tailored to oral medicine professionals. Assignments provided during this session will be used to bridge concepts into practical applications during the live interactive workshop.

Speaker: Joel Napenas, DDS
Associate Professor at Wake Forest School of Medicine, director of the Oral Medicine Residency Program, Medical Director and Chief at Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center

Learning Objectives:

1. Quantify the Value of Time: Learn to evaluate the monetary worth of your working hours and lifestyle.
2. Crafting the Vision: Create a life map integrating professional aspirations and financial goals.
3. Budgeting: Develop a tailored budget to align personal and professional objectives.
4. Retirement Planning Basics: Utilize tools like the 4% rule to estimate a sustainable nest egg and retirement timeline​​. 

In person/Interactive Portion 

Financial Literacy, Stability, and Wellbeing: Part 2
Saturday, May 17
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

Synopsis: In this interactive workshop, participants will analyze and discuss their pre-assigned tasks. Topics will extend into traditional advanced income generating and wealth-building strategies, leveraging assets beyond traditional income models, and using real-life investment case studies in real estate and other vehicles​​.  Participants should exit the session with an enlightened framework on how they approach their career, finances and overall life vision.

Speaker: Joel Napenas, DDS
Associate Professor at Wake Forest School of Medicine, director of the Oral Medicine Residency Program, Medical Director and Chief at Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center

Learning objectives:

1. Discovering Ikigai: Reflect on the Japanese concept of life purpose and how it ties into career and life satisfaction.
2. Balancing Professional and Financial Goals: Explore ways to harmonize oral medicine practice with diverse investment strategies using both traditional and alternative investment vehicles and portfolio diversification​​.
3. Understanding Leverage: Deep dive into leveraging time, energy, and capital for enhanced career and financial growth​​ and life satisfaction.
4. Applying Real-Life Lessons: Analyze examples of wealth building and passive income generation with real estate. 

Panel discussion with all speakers
2:00 PM – 2:20 PM

Synopsis: This closing talk tackles the bigger picture of long-term financial stability and highlight examples for future investments that may sustain financial security. 

Panelists: Joel Napenas, Nita Wu, Jaisri Thoppay, Milda Chmieliauskaite, Ken Ikeda, Katrina Myers, Iquebal Hasan 

Break: 2:20 PM – 2:30 PM 

Credentialling and Establishing Credentials [Interactive and Hands on]
Saturday, May 17 
2:30 PM – 3:15 PM

Synopsis: This interactive session highlights the essential elements in insurance credentialing process.

Speaker: Jaisri Thoppay  DDS, MBA, MS
Center for Integrative Oral Health

Learning objectives:

1. Understand the nuts and bolts of oral medicine credentialing.
2. Navigate the process associated with oral medicine providers credentialling.
3. Explore how to set up NPI, DEA, Taxonomy and CAQH. 

Billing and Coding [Interactive and Hands on]
Saturday, May 17 
3:15 PM - 4:00 PM

Synopsis: This hands-on session will walk attendees through the fundamental and practical details related to oral medicine billing and coding.

Speaker: Jaisri Thoppay  DDS, MBA, MS
Center for Integrative Oral Health

Learning objectives:

1. Understand the basic details pertaining to oral medicine coding.
2. Recognize coding and billing blackholes.
3. Appreciate how ICD selection may influence your billing and financial revenues.

Register for this workshop as part of the AAOM/EAOM Joint Annual Meeting.  If you have already registered for the conference, email [email protected] to register for the workshop alone.