Noah Levine

Purchasing products and maintaining a practice’s inventory is both time consuming and complicated

With multiple vendors offering the same products at different prices, finding the best deals and maintaining optimal inventories means regularly checking with multiple sellers.

Method’s cloud-based procurement platform is specifically engineered for dental practices

Provides increased visibility of purchasing habits for better insights into practice operations

Streamlined, systemic quoting process helps practices stay competitive and, when appropriate, purchase in volume for better pricing

The interface displays pricing comparisons in real-time for informed purchasing decisions

Intuitive interface makes it simple to use, and the system can be aligned to a practice’s budget priorities to ensure spending aligns with the practice’s plans

Supports multilocation practices with formularies and standardized or individual budgets

Provides reporting on purchasing data at the supplier, manufacturer, product, and category level

Can be used to manage inventory across multiple locations with barcoding to automate processes

Uses a 3-way match system to identify billing inaccuracies

Articles

Method’s cloud-based procurement platform offers a single system to manage all aspects of purchasing products for a practice. 

Solve My Problem: Smoothing Out Inefficiencies With Dental Product and Supply Purchasing

Last Minute Dental-Themed Halloween Costume Ideas for 2020

Like just about everything else, Halloween 2020 will be different than a normal year. If you don't have a costume picked out, but find yourself needing one, here's some last-minute costume ideas for dental professionals that seem appropriate for 2020.

Surveying the lab scanner landscape

Slideshows

A roundup of some of the newest dental laboratory scanners around.

Surveying the Lab Scanner Landscape

Success or failure, communication is a key component that can influence the outcome of every case that comes through a dental lab. Often, it’s the effectiveness of this communication between the practice and your lab that determines if the case meets the expectation of the doctor and the patient. Breakdowns in communication can mean incorrect information is used while designing and fabricating the restoration, which will then lead to a restoration that doesn’t provide proper fit, function, or esthetics.

Communicating is a two-way process, and it’s certainly not always the lab’s fault when key details get missed in the clinic-lab communication process. However, even when the communication breakdowns are clearly the fault of the practice, if the case doesn’t turn out as planned, the lab is the party that will need to remake the restoration. This means making sure you receive all the information you need and a process for managing questions or problems as they arise is extremely important for dental labs. With that in mind, here are a pair of tips from members of the 

 Editorial Advisory Board to help you improve the lines of communication between your lab and the practices sending you cases.

“Today more than ever HIPAA-compliant communication has come front and center in dental technology. Communication with clinicians is crucial to success of a case, these communications have become difficult to do while maintaining HIPAA compliance. This is partially due to the fact that some of today’s HIPAA compliance software has been difficult to communicate through, but I have found a compliant communications platform that works for me.

Awrel App

), invented by Dr Arnie Rosen, is what we use to communicate with our clinicians. Awrel is a free, encrypted text messaging app that is HIPAA compliant. The app is simple to use and follows today’s text messaging format in which you can send text messages, upload and send photos as well as files—all while remaining secure and observing HIPAA compliance.”

“When we speak of the need for communication in the fabrication of removable prosthetics, I take a proactive approach which not only includes the clinician, but also the patient.

“One way I do this is on specific cases that involve restoring only one arch is to provide a faux opposing appliance which is used to communicate the need for cross arch posterior support. In cases where patients are edentulous posteriorly, I place teeth which are made by duplicating denture teeth in self-cure resin on a baseplate. This not only aids in the arranging of teeth on the definitive appliance to be made in ideal positions, but also illustrates the need for support to adequately provide function expected from the new prosthetic to the patient.

Removables communication tips

“Many times, this communicates to the patient the need for ‘back teeth’ and they move toward considering either a definitive opposing restoration, or if a definitive restoration is economically unfeasible, converting the try-in set up to a wearable provisional one.”

These tips are just a few of the many ways dental labs can take charge to make sure communication with clinicians about cases includes every detail you need to complete your work, and that communication of patient health information is managed via secure, HIPAA-compliant channels.

A pair of expert technicians share some of their favorites tools and tricks for improving communication with dentists.

 2 easy ways to improve communication about cases

Weekly biological indicator testing of dental sterilizers can take up to a week to produce results when using an outside lab

A malfunctioning sterilizer could remain in use, and improperly sterilized instruments could be used with patients while waiting for the results of a spore test sent to a lab.

provides sterilization monitoring results in just 24 minutes

compact size to easily fit on a countertop

four wells for testing 4 samples or controls simultaneously

large display features a countdown timer to indicate when results will be available

incubates and reads 3M Attest Super Rapid Readout Biological Indicators 1491 (Blue cap) and 1492V (Brown cap)*

connects to a computer via an included USB cable for simple results documentation in the Attest Connect Auto-reader Application

* BI indications for use should align with the sterilization cycle(s) to be monitored.

The 3M Attest Mini Auto-reader 490M keeps sterilizer testing in house with results in less than half an hour.

Solve My Problem: Sterilization peace of mind in 24 minutes

Many patients suffer from sleep apnea and other disorders that can affect their overall health and quality of life

Providing sleep services to patients requires specialized training, knowledge of available sleep solutions, and expertise in medical billing, in order to make treatment accessible to more patients.

includes educational programs for the entire practice team with a mix of live online sessions and self-directed learning developed by experts in the field

diagnostic assistance is provided by board-certified sleep physicians to interpret sleep studies and provide a proper diagnosis along with a therapeutic prescription

includes comprehensive treatment planning and device selection with doctor-to-doctor consults and patient record review

provides access to a large portfolio of FDA-cleared sleep appliances, including the Aligner Sleep Appliance® to ensure each patient’s unique situation is treated with the most appropriate solution

includes a full medical billing service that handles benefits verification, claim submissions, and even management of insurance denials

features fun, engaging patient educational videos and other case acceptance tools and social media content to drive awareness

ongoing support and clinical expertise from SleepArchiTx

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The 360° Certified Provider Program from SleepArchiTx provides dental practices with everything they need. 

Solve My Problem: Unlock the potential of treating sleep disorders

Dental restorations often only last a few years before recurrent decay can cause failures and the need for treatment beneath the restoration

This recurrent decay is caused by pathogens that can build up on the tooth surface and penetrate through any marginal gaps or are trapped beneath the surface of the restoration, causing damage to the tooth structure around and beneath the restoration.

Is an antimicrobial solution designed to reduce bacteria and fungi while also addressing residual microbial contamination

Removes debris in carious lesion preparations

Helps stabilize collagen fibers by reducing troublesome natural enzymes, including matrix metallopeptidases and cathepsins

Features FDA-cleared antimicrobial technology that’s effectiveness is demonstrated in published, peer-reviewed papers

Penetrates exposed dentin tubules that can improve restoration adhesion

With its antimicrobial properties, FiteBac Cavity Cleanser can help protect restored teeth from developing recurrent decay that can lead to restoration failure.

Solve My Problem: Eliminating a main source of restoration failures

2020 Cellerant Best of Class Technology Awards

Get to know the dental products that earned the 2020 Cellerant Best of Class Technology Award.

The 2020 Cellerant Best of Class Technology Award Winning Products

General dental and specialty practices offering services that include implants, endodontics, orthodontics, periodontics, 

Initial diagnostics, preop treatment planning, case presentation, postop documentation

The CS 9600 is a 5-in-1 imaging system designed to provide a solution that can scale up as a practice grows while offering high-quality images regardless if they are 2D panoramic, 3D cone beam, cephalometric, 3D extraoral facial scans, or 3D model scans. With up to 14 available fields of view and a 120 kV X-ray tube for crisp images at low radiation doses, the system can be configured for precision and patient safety, regardless of the case being treated.

With the Live Positioning Assistant and on-board artificial intelligence the system makes capturing the correct image on the first try simple, and then stores positioning data to make capturing follow-up images simple and equally accurate. CS MAR (metal artifact reduction) improves the quality of 3D imaging even when a patient has previous implants or other metal objects within the imaging area, and the system can be upgraded with Carestream Dental's new Tomosharp algorithm that ensures incredibly detailed 2D panoramic images

Connected to Carestream Dental's imaging software solutions, the CS 9600 can be used for airway analysis, prosthetic-driven implant treatment planning, and a wide range of other applications.