With her supervisors’ encouragement, the manager of the Dalton office of a children’s dental clinic that catered to Medicaid recipients created an overheated incentive program to recruit new patients—without knowing it likely violated federal regulations—that for more than a year made the clinic “something between a game show and a sweatshop,” according to her lawyer.
Then the U.S. Senate Finance Committee began investigating Kool Smiles, the Atlanta-based pediatric dental chain that owned the Dalton clinic, said Ringgold attorney and former state Rep. McCracken Poston. A joint investigation that same year by “Frontline” and the Center for Public Integrity entitled “Dollars and Dentists” alleged the dental chain pushed unnecessary treatments for Medicaid patients.
