CAD/CAM ticks many boxes, but make sure your materials are exceptional
Featured Products Promotional FeaturesPosted by: Dental Design 20th August 2021
In the dental setting, every process, choice of material, piece of equipment and tool must offer benefits to patient and practitioner. People are shopping around – more than ever if they’ve found it hard to get an appointment with their regular dentist since the pandemic – and with sky-high standards and expectations, practices are having to raise their game.
Promoting the processes, materials, equipment and tools you use as part of your marketing is no bad thing – you are selling an experience, a patient journey which includes being fully invested in helping every patient maintain their long-term oral health. A patient-focussed practice will stand a better chance of weathering any storms, so ensure that they know you are dedicated to excellence, using only high-quality products that support your exceptional level of all-round service.
If you plan on taking an inventory of your treatment list and the products you use in order to meet patients’ needs better, are CAD/CAM restorations part of your armamentarium? If they’re not, and you are still using more traditional methods, maybe it’s time to introduce them to make workflows more streamlined and upgrade your results, particularly for single-tooth restorations. If you already do, does your current choice of material give you the functional, mechanical and optical advantages that people want?
Smooth and simple
One key benefit of CAD/CAM restorations is smoother workflows. You should review workflows regularly to ensure that you aren’t missing a way to do something more efficiently. The whole dental team should contribute – often, looking at a process from another point of view can be unexpectedly enlightening, and you immediately see something to change.
CAD/CAM technology has been shown to simplify the creation of restorations and save time. This is beneficial for scheduling (you may still be seeing fewer patients, per day) and a streamlined treatment will also be appealing to anyone in two minds about booking. Using the latest technology, the 3D images can be shared with your patients too, making them feel part of the fabrication of their restoration, that will then be sculpted according to exact specifications. If this is the first time that someone will have had a tooth restored, they may have pre-conceived ideas and/or questions – will part of their healthy enamel need to be removed to fit the new crown, for example? With CAD/CAM, many common problems are avoided. This is conservative, minimally invasive dentistry at its best and the patient (and you) will be rewarded with a restoration that is strong, functional, beautiful and yet natural, which blends seamlessly with the existing dentition for a confident smile.
The CAD/CAM process, with no separate firing, means less chair time and therefore good value. Multiple visits to the practice are not what modern patients will want, and if they can save money as well as hours spent at the dentist, and still receive treatment par excellence, this is another reason for them to say “yes”.
Improved predictability with CAD/CAM is another advantage, particularly when it comes to treatment planning. If you are able to offer a smile simulation even better – a great plan will start with deciding on the clinically required and aesthetically desired outcome, then plotting how to get there. CAD/CAM tech is innovating all the time, which means that dental factors unique to the patient won’t affect the predictability of the result.
When you use CAD/CAM, your crowns, veneers, inlays and onlays must be created using high-performance materials that are an equal match to the process itself. The properties of the restorative material should offer strength and “shock absorbing” effects, to keep the tooth in function for years, with correct maintenance. The material should also support reliable, fast and accurate restorations and be suitable for broad daily use giving you plenty of options. For all conventional indications, BRILLIANT Crios from COLTENE is a reinforced composite bloc with excellent mechanical properties and aesthetics. You can use the bloc to sculpt strong restorations – it is particularly suitable for bruxism patients and implant-supported crowns. Available in two translucencies and 13 shades, optics will be pleasing too.
We hear a lot about CAD/CAM, but not every practice has chosen to invest in the technology. Many who have, though, discovered how quickly the investment paid for itself. Being able to make every patient’s journey more streamlined, efficient, comfortable and successful can be supported by digital dentistry, but you must use high-quality materials as part of this process.
Modern patients might be entirely unaware of how much innovation has taken place in the area of dental materials since they last needed a crown (if they ever have). This is where coordination, communication and engagement, via your marketing as well as during consultations, is fundamental. You can tell them just how much more is now possible in half the time and for a result that will last for years.
For more on COLTENE, visit www.coltene.com,
email info.uk@coltene.com or call 0800 254 5115.
