“I am extremely pleased. I have and will always recommend CE Broker.”
– Erin Conner, Assistant Executive Director, Louisiana State Board of Dentistry
Industry
Dentistry
Location
Louisiana
Number of Licensees
6,000* as of 2023
Challenge
A core duty of the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry (Board) is to oversee the licensure and continuing education requirements of dentists and dental hygienists in Louisiana.
Each year, one board staff member was responsible for managing, reviewing, and processing license renewal paperwork. Documentation was sent by email, fax, or physical mail, resulting in extensive paper trails to ensure correct continuing education certificates were submitted. Because of the manual processing of all paperwork associated with the license renewal and audit process, other board responsibilities were delayed.
Erin Conner, Assistant Executive Director for the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry, explained, “we had a small office with only five employees. CE checks and audits would come at renewal time. In addition to being the only one to check the CE records, I had to oversee licensing, my entire department, and any renewal problems outside of CE audits, and some things had to get pushed to the back burner.”
Solution
Maintaining the manual, paper-based workflow was no longer sustainable for the board staff. The Board went in search of a budget-friendly solution to increase efficiency and automate these manual processes. After careful consideration, the Board selected CE Broker as their solution to modernize and streamline their CE management and audit processes.
The Board chose CE Broker over the other evaluated systems because it was free for the board, the ease of working with the organization, and the excellent customer service offered to not only the board staff but all of their licensees. The implementation of CE Broker came at no cost to the board, which allowed the Board to keep licensing fees and dues at the same rate.
Conner recounted that she was grateful for CE Broker’s professionalism throughout the entire consideration process, “I was really excited, and CE Broker was professional and not pushy during the sales process, and that’s a big deal for me.”
Lastly, the Board chose CE Broker because of the excellent customer service the board staff and licensees would receive. Conner said, “I love that I have a single point of contact with CE Broker, and she’s fantastic. I cannot recall a time when a problem arose that she couldn’t resolve quickly.”
Results
The initial implementation of CE Broker and further integrations performed later all went very smoothly for the Board. During the first year of utilizing CE Broker, the Board required that all licensees create an account, which encouraged familiarity with the new system.
The following year, licensees were required to track and report all of their continuing education through the platform, and the Board integrated CE Broker with their licensing system to automate the process of checking CE compliance during license renewal. 97% of the Board’s licensees have an account and report their CE through the CE Broker system.
The new system transformed the CE submittal and auditing processes. CE compliance rates increased to 92% of the population licensed by the Board. The board staff’s time and resources previously spent on manual processes could now be utilized elsewhere. All records were now submitted digitally, the CE compliance check was automated through CE Broker’s API, and licensees’ CE compliance status could be easily monitored through a single dashboard.
With CE Broker, the Board did not have to try to fit what could have been a very expensive new system into their budget and did not have to establish a change of their bylaws because licensees have always been required to retain documentation.
But now, with CE Broker, licensees can maintain digital records in a single account seamlessly integrated with the Board’s system.
About the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry
The mission of the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry is to protect the public by regulating the professions of dentistry and dental hygiene in accordance with the Dental Practice Act.
About CE Broker
CE Broker is a streamlined CE tracking and auditing system. Its best-in-class software connects licensing boards, education providers, and licensed professionals in one easy-to-use platform designed to increase compliance rates, streamline administrative complexity and encourage professional development. It also speeds up the processing of renewal certificates.