A game-changer for placing implants

There are several obstacles that can discourage general dentists from integrating implant placement into their practices. Chief among these are time and money.

For those who lack the proper resources and understanding of how and when to properly invest in the necessary resources, the road to complete implant dentistry can be fraught with hazard, but an Illinois startup is out to change all that.

Related reading: Quick Tip: How implants can be a source of increased profitability for the dental practice 

ImplantWide™ is a teaching implant surgicenter which, according to its website, “provides quality continuing education in an open and mentoring environment for general dentists for the placement and restoration of dental implants.”

“What makes the ImplantWide concept truly revolutionary is that the only costs the partner dentist incurs are variable,” says Daniel A. “Danny” Bobrow, MBA, president of AIM Dental Marketing and ImplantWide’s director of marketing.

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“Other training centers require a huge up-front investment, and then the dentist must also invest in costly equipment and inventory. That’s simply not the case with ImplantWide,” Bobrow says.

Educational options

ImplantWide has opened its first location in Schaumburg, Ill., not far from O’Hare International Airport, and is offering four different ways for dentists and team members to acquire the skills necessary to confidently place implants:
Scan-only - The patient is scanned, and then the scan is returned to the partner dentist to interpret and prepare the treatment plan.

Scan and report - Utilizing its best-in-class analysis treatment presentation protocol, ImplantWide scans the patient and shares a comprehensive treatment recommendation with the partner dentist on how best to place the implant.

Team - The dentist works with an ImplantWide surgeon to perform the implant procedure. The partner dentist then bills his or her patient whatever he or she wants and keeps the difference.

Solo - When the partner dentist is sufficiently competent and confident, he/she uses the surgicenter and simply pays a modest facility fee, as well as for any implants that are used (unless the partner dentist brings his or her own implants in which case there is no extra cost. This is termed their “no-corkage-fee” policy).
Whichever approach is chosen, partner dentists earn AGD Pace CE for every hour they are at the facility.

“The idea occurred to me in speaking with an orthopedic surgeon,” says ImplantWide founder James Chapko, DDS. “Surgeons never tell their patient to ‘meet me at my office for your knee replacement.’ Instead, the patient meets the surgeon at a hospital or surgicenter where the surgeon has privileges. It’s the same with ImplantWide except the partner dentist need not know how to actually place the implant. Simply being present and willing to participate and learn means, as a partner dentist, you earn while you learn.”

ImplantWide plans, following its successful Illinois launch, to expand throughout the nation. 

Photo: courtesy of Parker Nyquist