NovoHealth Artificial Intelligence Aides in Radiograph Assessment

Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions company, NovoDyanmics, Inc., has received a US patent for its Methods and Systems for Periodontal Disease Screening technology for evaluating dental

Radiographs, and associated documentation to assess periodontitis and periodontal disease. This technology is part of the NovoDynamics NovoHealth® Dental solution, supporting clinician and payer decisions with objective disease assessments.

The NovoHealth Dental platform is designed to automatically analyze dental insurance claims in real-time; deliver accurate clinical assessments; uncover fraud, waste, and abuse to effectively eliminate “pay and chase;” and efficiently streamlines claim review to accelerate reimbursement, according to a press release from the company. The NovoHealth Dental Periodontitis Disease Assessment module can achieve high-quality results, even when only low-quality or non-diagnostic quality radiograph images are available. It’s said to pinpoint affected sites, assess severity, and determine whether claimed procedures meet the patient’s dental insurance plan reimbursement criteria, the press release read.

“Evaluating claims for periodontal services such as scaling and root planing, and even gum surgery, can be time-consuming and particularly challenging,” Dr Joseph Borg, DDS, dental director at NovoDynamics said, according to the company’s statement. “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 proprietary technologies such as federated database retrieval, data normalization, advanced image processing, pattern recognition, predictive analytics, machine learning, and more.

The NovoHealth Dental Periodontal Disease Assessment module 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.