RDH Law and Ethics practice questions: Professional practices

Answer C: Unprofessional conduct — knowingly charting a fact that did not occur is itself a disciplinary offense.

knowingly making a statement or signing a document that falsely represents the existence or nonexistence of a fact related to practice is unprofessional conduct, as is altering a record with intent to deceive.

Common trap: the honest fix for a charting error is a new, dated correction entry that leaves the original visible — never a fabricated or overwritten one.

Source: Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 1950.5 — Unprofessional Conduct Defined, subds. (a)–(z): fee fraud (a); aiding or abetting unlicensed or unlawful practice…

Answer B: Destruction that preserves confidentiality — shredding or the equivalent — for paper charts as well.

CMIA requires that medical information be created, maintained, preserved, stored, abandoned, destroyed, and disposed of in a manner that preserves confidentiality, and that duty covers paper charts.

Common trap: retention periods govern when records may be destroyed; they never authorize how they are discarded. Note the federal boundary too: the HIPAA Privacy Rule reaches PHI in every medium, but the Security Rule's administrative, physical, and technical safeguards apply to electronic PHI only, so they are not the authority for a paper-shredding answer.

Source: Cal. Civ. Code § 56.10 et seq. — Confidentiality of Medical Information Act: the disclosure prohibition, mandatory and permissive disclosure lanes, §…

Answer C: No, because the RDH must sign her name or identification number and initials next to each service she performed, and date those entries.

BPC § 1953 requires an RDH, RDHAP, or RDHEF "who performs a service on a patient in a dental office" to "identify himself or herself in the patient record by signing his or her name or identification number and initials next to the service performed," and to date those treatment entries. The identification attaches per service, not per page or per visit, so a page-level countersignature by anyone else does not satisfy the statute. A repeated violation of the identification requirement is itself unprofessional conduct and can support DHBC discipline.

Common trap: The supervising-dentist answers feel right because the dentist bears clinical responsibility for generally supervised services — but responsibility for the care and identification in the record are separate duties. The software-timestamp option is the modern version of the same error: an audit trail is good practice, not the statutory signature-and-initials-next-to-the-service mechanic. And the violation is complete when the entry is made; it does not wait for a records request.

Source: Dental Hygiene Board of California, 2025 Dental Hygiene Board of California Laws and Regulations (revised January 2025) — reprinting BPC § 137…

Answer D: Add a new, dated correction entry that identifies and fixes the error while leaving the original entry visible.

BPC § 1950.5(q) makes "the alteration of a patient's record with intent to deceive" unprofessional conduct, and subdivision (z) separately reaches knowingly making a statement or signing a document that falsely represents the existence or nonexistence of a fact. The lawful protocol is therefore additive, not substitutive: a new, dated, transparent correction entry that leaves the original legible preserves both accuracy and the audit trail, and it keeps the § 1953 identification-and-date mechanic intact for the new entry.

Common trap: Options A and B are tempting because the final chart reads more accurately, and candidates reason that a good-faith fix cannot be "intent to deceive." But rewriting or deleting under the original date destroys the evidence that the error ever existed, which is exactly what the alteration rule targets — and a chart that silently changes months later is the worst possible exhibit in a board investigation. Option C mistakes record custody for authorship; the hygienist documents her own services.

Source: Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 1950.5 — Unprofessional Conduct Defined: fee fraud (a), false-name advertising (e), commissions/rebates (f), deceptive…

Answer C: Seven years after the date of discharge.

The DHBC's 2025 facility regulations state that all dental hygiene patient treatment records and communications relating to the patient's care following discharge "shall be maintained by the owner for a minimum of seven (7) years," and they apply the same rule to a mobile dental hygiene clinic and to an RDHAP's registered physical facility. Both regulations also require compliance with HIPAA's security standards for the patient's protected health information while the records are held.

Common trap: Option D exploits a real fact taken one step too far — HIPAA's Privacy and Security Rules impose safeguards without prescribing a universal medical-record retention period, so candidates conclude no number exists. The DHBC regulations supply the number this exam can test. Options A and B come from stale prep: the mobile-clinic and RDHAP-facility regulations took effect January 1, 2025, so any study material written earlier simply does not contain the seven-year rule.

Source: 16 CCR § 1116 — Mobile Dental Hygiene Clinics: seven-year post-discharge record retention, HIPAA security compliance, and the…