ANN ARBOR–NovoDynamics Inc., the artificial intelligence products and services provider for the dental industry, has been granted United States Patent No. 11,464,466 for a new screening technology for evaluating X-rays for periodontitis and periodontal disease.
The new technology is part of the NovoDynamics NovoHealth Dental system, supporting clinician and payer decisions with objective, statistically driven disease assessments. NovoHealth Dental has been shown to meet or exceed the performance of committees of periodontists examining the same evidence.
Filed in 2019, the patent describes methods and systems that were incorporated and further developed in the NovoHealth Dental platform, which automatically analyzes dental insurance claims in real time; delivers accurate clinical assessments; uncovers fraud, waste, and abuse to effectively eliminate “pay and chase;” and efficiently streamlines claim review to accelerate reimbursement.
The NovoHealth Dental Periodontitis Disease Assessment module can achieve high-quality results even when only low-quality or non-diagnostic quality X-ray images are available. It pinpoints affected sites, assesses severity, and determines whether claimed procedures meet the patient’s dental insurance plan reimbursement criteria.
Periodontitis (a.k.a. gum disease) can damage soft tissue and erode bone that supports the teeth. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly half of U.S. adults have periodontal disease. While less-severe disease can be addressed with diligent at-home oral hygiene, professional intervention may be indicated for more severe cases.
“Evaluating claims for periodontal services such as scaling and root planing, and even gum surgery, can be time consuming and particularly challenging,” says Dr. Joseph Borg, dental director at NovoDynamics. “Because radiographs submitted with insurance claims are often of poor quality, identifying bone loss and other pathologies can be difficult, potentially delaying patient treatment, insurance claim adjudication, and population-based healthcare planning.”
To address the numerous challenges inherent in computer-aided periodontal disease assessment, the NovoDynamics patent draws on the company’s wealth of experience and expertise solving complex problems by applying its proprietary technologies and employing sophisticated techniques such as federated database retrieval, data normalization, advanced image processing, pattern recognition, predictive analytics, machine learning, and much more. Built with this powerful intellectual property, the NovoHealth Dental Periodontal Disease Assessment module rapidly recognizes and classifies insurance claim attachments, discerning between radiographs, photographs, periodontal charts, and narratives such as practitioner notes or correspondence. It automatically extracts relevant images and labels each x-ray according to view type (bitewing, periapical, or panoramic), tooth type, and location. It quickly identifies key anatomical structures and uses AI-driven statistical models to assess bone loss and to calculate the number of teeth affected per quadrant for coding review purposes.
NovoDynamics, an In-Q-Tel portfolio company, has been applying its proven AI expertise and advanced image processing technology to solve complex problems for governments, commercial enterprises, and academic institutions since 2001. More at NovoDynamics.com.
In-Q-Tel is a American not-for-profit venture capital firm based in Arlington, Va. It invests in high-tech companies to keep the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability.