The dental lab is a mission-critical component of providing patient care and running the day-to-day operations of your dental practice. Here are the top 5 advantages of investing in a single lab relationship.
1. Building a team
When you have a relationship with a dental lab, you’re getting more than just a crown. You’re getting a relationship that provides the unique opportunity to deliver a consistent level of care based on your preferences. A lab familiar with how you prefer to treat patients will remember how you like contacts, occlusions, occlusal staining, etc. And the lab will call to discuss issues that may limit case preferences. Having a trusted team also allows you the flexibility to make changes easily, get direct and honest feedback, and even call in a favor from time to time.
2. Streamlining processes
Multiple lab relationships are difficult to manage, and disparate processes can disrupt your practice. Instead of 3-4 labs segmented out by price or various patient needs, investing in a single lab relationship affords you the opportunity to work with a single point of contact—and even call your tech by name. Additionally, working with a local lab creates an even more seamless lab experience with perks like local pickup and delivery, custom shading, expedited rush cases, conversion services, and same-day realign and repairs for dentures and partials.
3. Offering full-service support
Not every dental lab can support everything a dentist does, but a full-service lab can provide one-stop shopping. When you invest in a full-service lab, a dedicated team works to support your entire practice—not just a narrow component of it. Labs that outsource their work aren’t really full service and often mark up their prices. A lab that doesn’t outsource work increases accountability to create responsibility for the quality of the products you receive. A lab large enough to specialize in each procedure but small enough to support the dentist will take full responsibility for case success.
4. Working on combination cases
Combination cases involve different types of treatment, and it’s easier to communicate between departments in-house versus between labs. The ability to have planning support, restoration specialists and department heads all under one roof provides dentists with a unique advantage. Having a single lab relationship provides greater consistently and accountability to ensure every step in the process is done right. Working with one lab also expedites the process because cases don’t need to be shipped from lab to lab.
5. Growing your practice
A trusted lab partner can help grow your practice if you’re interested in getting away from single-unit crown and bridge cases and getting into removables, implants, and full-mouth cosmetic or hybrid cases. For these larger, complex cases, a high level of trust in your lab pays for itself. And a lab partner that invests in new equipment and materials can also help dentists transition into adopting new technology to stay competitive. Investing in the right lab relationship will give you a partner that will help you reach your goals well into the future.