Dental Lab Industry blog 2

Last month I talked about the lab industry and it’s still sad to hear many more labs have closed down. Be nice to the ones that are available because like myself, I’m very selective on who I choose to work with now. The days of begging for work or backing down to a threat of sending the work else where is pretty much non-existent and the people who say this usually lose a foot after shooting it!

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With me... if you want to go somewhere else, please do, no backsies. A scenario I had with an implant case, a dentist wanted a implant bridge on two implants, the case was fitted no issues. 18 months later the bridge had failed, we advised that we can do another implant bridge as part of our remake policy and the dentist insisted on having two single units instead, we advised that two single implants units will not be the same as a bridge and you will get charged are you happy to continue? The dentist agreed, fitted the new single units and it went fine. After it had been fitted, the dentist sent an email saying it wasn’t fair that they was charged for new job and our fixtures are guaranteed for 2 years so it should be covered.

Unfortunately for that dentist the case was not the same, it was two single units and not a bridge, the remake policy was made 1 year after the case had been fitted and a conversation was made with the dentist about going ahead with the charges which they agreed on. This was all sent to the dentist in a email and the response back was basically along the lines of I thought you would try and keep your customers... I will send my work else where.

We will always put our clients and their patients first, we offered a like for like which they did not want and wanted something different which was not covered and they was aware of this. When someone says to me I’m going to leave and find some where else, I think back to the situation I know of in the lab industry, shortage of skilled technicians and dental labs that are taking on new clients, inundated with cases consistently and I can’t help but think... as Kayne West says “Go find god!” which basically is a way urban way of saying go for it! Thumbs up emoji!

I did notice a trend this year, dental practice opening mini labs in the practice to help with the shortage of dental labs. We have gone back In time but this time round there are no technicians to facilitate this and I believe practice are getting their dental nurses to do this. I don’t know if it will work but I know the average technician salary is higher than that of a dental nurse, be prepared for that conversation!

Last month I touched on corporate dental labs taking over! And what I actually found out, is that they are taking over not only on the lab side but by going direct to patients and cutting out the dentist and practices completely! Business is business at the end of the day, let’s move on and keep it moving!