The new 3 Ps: Productive, profitable and predictable

Dentistry is currently facing numerous challenges. It is time we take a long, hard look at how we do things on a daily basis. There are now three new Ps to consider if we are going to rise to meet these new challenges: productivity, profitability and predictability.

So what are these challenges that are threating the profitability of our practices? One of the major issues we are facing is with insurance companies. PPO-type insurance plans have taken over at an alarming rate. They now represent 82–85 percent of insurance plans offered by employers in the United States.

If that isn’t enough, during the past couple years, they have taken the bold step of reducing insurance reimbursements by 5 to 15 percent in many states. They have also tried to dictate the fees that we can charge for services they do not even cover.

The second dilemma is the increase in taxes because of the changes in FICA, medical device tax, Medicare tax and Obamacare. This means the average dentist will pay somewhere between $4,000 to $11,000 more than he or she did last year. Put another way, we will have to produce approximately 10 to 12 percent more just to break even.

Lastly, the economy is still struggling, which is causing consumer spending to remain stagnant. The American Dental Association projects this spending to stay unchanged for the next 10 years.

One way to combat the threat to our profitability is to increase productivity. Dentists must learn how to do more procedures in less time, without sacrificing quality of care. How can we increase our hourly production while differentiating our practices by offering the patient a fantastic service? The answer is innovative technology.

The right technology makes all the difference. Dentists need technology to free up operative time so they can be more productive, providing more services while lowering their overhead and continuing to deliver high-quality care. Offering patients the opportunity to have their restorations completed in a single visit is a great way to increase case acceptance, thereby increasing productivity.

People are very pressed for time with jobs, children and other responsibilities, and let’s be honest, no one really enjoys going to the dentist any more than they have to. So if the dentist can provide a restoration in a single visit by making the restoration with the NEVO/Planscan, then that eliminates one of the objections we hear in the dental office. Not to mention the technology allows the dentist to conserve more natural tooth as well as manufacture the restoration out of materials that are some of the closest dentistry has ever had to tooth structure, all while being as long lasting as gold.

Another way to increase productivity is to delegate much of the imaging and design portion of onlay/crown appointments to the dental assistant. NEVO/Planscan is one of the easiest ways to do this. If you consider what is accomplished in a prep appointment, the doctor is only needed to anesthetize the patient, prep the teeth and seat the restoration. At the beginning of the appointment, the doctor can add a product called Onset to his or her anesthetic. Onset is a buffering solution that decreases the onset time of anesthesia and makes the injection more comfortable. This allows the procedure to be started within one to two minutes of administration, increasing the efficiency as well as allowing the doctor to stay with the patient, offering comfort and building rapport.

This product lends itself well to the NEVO/Planscan’s ability to increase efficiency and workflow. By adding CAD/CAM technology to their practice, doctors can utilize their assistants to free up their own time to accomplish more procedures and greatly increase their productivity. It also adds to the job satisfaction of the assistant, giving him or her additional skills and responsibilities as well as a sense of autonomy, which most tend to enjoy. The front desk schedules overlapping chair time for these appointments, knowing the doctor will be needed only for the first 20 minutes of the appointment and again for 15 minutes at the end to bond.

After more than two decades of using CAD/CAM technology, I think I can strongly assert that finding the right company and the right technology is the key to success. The NEVO/Planscan system through Henry Schein is the solution to achieving the new three Ps. It can help increase hourly production and profitability by delivering predictable, high-quality restorations. This incredible portable scanner can be easily moved from room to room, which makes the work flow so much faster and more predictable. The software allows quick design with accuracy and very little “tool work” to get to the final result. This allows the doctor to produce a high-quality restoration efficiently. It also allows the doctor the ability to delegate many of these steps to auxiliary staff and to free up even more time to be productive in other parts of the dental office.

The other advantage of the NEVO/Planscan is it allows us to be very conservative in placing inlays/onlays and to save tooth structure, which should be every dentist’s goal. The other CAD/CAM units on the market are primarily built to perform full crowns and, as such, pressure the dentist to destroy too much of the natural tooth structure, because this is easier for the doctors using these units. These other units also slow the workflow, causing it to take longer and be less productive, thus lowering the hourly production of the general dentist.

In conclusion, the decisions we dentists make today about technology are the decisions that are going to set our offices up for success. Don’t make the mistake of choosing the wrong technology. Do your due diligence and make sure you choose the technology that sets you up to achieve productivity, profitability and predictability. My choice today is NEVO/Planscan, without a doubt.

This article was published in CAD/CAM the international C.E. magazine of digital dentistry, North America Edition, Vol. 4 Issue 1, 2014.