Five questions to ask your dental lab at first meeting

A dental lab plays an important role as your dental practice’s preferred technology partner. A well-equipped and experienced dental laboratory can provide you with the highest quality restorations at affordable prices. It pays to be selective when you’re looking for such an important collaborator. So how do you know when you’ve found a top dental lab?

When selecting a new dental lab, nothing beats sitting down with the lab manager for a chat. An in-person meeting can tell you a lot about who you’re dealing with. The things to look out for relate to how transparent and forthcoming they are when handling your queries. Experienced dental laboratories that know they are offering an unbeatable price for high quality dental restorations would welcome questions.

They would be more than happy to take you on a tour of their facilities because they would naturally be proud of their workflow and set-up. They would not be evasive about questions regarding price, turnaround speed and how they maintain quality assurance throughout the pipeline. They would love to show off their portfolio and image gallery of exquisite craftsmanship.

To get the most out of that initial conversation, you will need to be prepared with the right questions to ask.

Here’s a selection of questions that will help you evaluate if the dental lab offer is worth taking up.

#1: How do I submit a case to you?

When you are considering sending your first case to a dental lab, it is important to know the way to go about doing it. Some choice dental labs would arrange free courier service for all cases sent in from the customer, while others require payment upfront or on delivery. It is always best to check this before submitting any work order. If there is no mention of how they handle submissions at their website, then contact them and find out what happens next. This information should also be included in their brochure or marketing materials.

Find out, for example, if the dental laboratory accept both traditional and digital cases. If the latter, do they provide an online portal through which you can easily and quickly submit digital impressions. It can be argued that digital dental labs are usually better invested enterprises with deeper resources and more skilled technicians.

If you are submitting digital implant impressions, what are the scan body options that the lab supports? Do you need to use a scan body type that belongs to a particular brand or system, or can you use a generic brand?

Some dental implant manufacturers of intraoral scanners such as Dentsply-Sirona provide their own brand (CEREC) scan flags. Other dental implants companies such as Core3D and Medentika provide generic scan flags. In the interest of future-proofing your relationship, it is perhaps safer to partner with a lab that accepts both genuine and generic scan flags that cover the majority of brands – particularly the industry standard systems such as Straumann and Nobel Biocare.

#2: How do you interface with your customers?

As a modern dentist, dealing with a generation of tech savvy and digitally connected patients, you know what customer service in the 21st century looks like.

Not only do you need to look after their experience when they visit your premises, you want to make life easy for them before they even pass through your clinic doors. You want to offer a convenient way for them to connect with your practice, enjoy easy access to your services and book appointments on the fly from their mobile devices and tablets. You want them to stay connected via informative newsletters so they are kept abreast of the latest services, special offers and promotions.

In the same token, that’s the kind of quality customer-oriented service that you should be expecting from your quality dental lab partner: Speed, efficiency, convenience, hassle-free 24/7 access, sincere and thoughtful service personnel, etc.

Above all, you want more choice. A good customer-oriented dental lab doesn’t tie you down to one form of service. It lets you choose from a variety of dental lab services.

On one hand, you want friendly and helpful customer service personnel that can quickly and efficiently locate an experienced technician to solve your issues. On the other hand, you want quick access to view your account history, check recent transactions, and find out the time of dispatch on behalf of your patient. For these dental labs digital cases are usually preferred as they can promise a faster turnaround and higher accuracy in their prosthetic creations.

The best dental laboratories are those that offer you a choice between a Customer Relations Officer and a dedicated online Customer Portal.

A Customer Relations Officer is someone who will give you personalised service and with tablet in hand, walk you through each case with drawings and diagrams. A modern dental lab provider will give the option of a Customer Portal that can be accessed 24/7 from any mobile device or desktop computer, providing real-time information at the press of a button.

In one glance, you should be able to access all your transactions at one glance, including invoices, purchase history and lab processing status for each case. You should have the choice to pay through a bank transfer or e-payment system of preference. Of course, dispatch and pick-up times should be updated in real-time – so there are no surprises!

#3: Can I have a look around your dental lab?

A dental lab manager will be more than happy to show you around the premises if the facility is well presented, modern, neat, professional and equipped with the latest technology. For example, who doesn’t want their customer to see the million dollar high-speed milling machine or branded 3D printer up close?

Of course, you are not necessarily looking out for the most expensive equipment set-up. The trademarks of a good lab is often reflected by simpler things: neat and organised cabinets, clean and professional work environment, signs of workplace health and safety compliance, shelves with neatly filed and labelled cases, well attired and good-mannered technicians and staff, etc.

With a global shortage of dental technicians, you might not see rows and rows of benches filled with uniformed technicians – unless you’re visiting one of those mega labs in China. However, you should see a good sized team that is able to meet your demands and turnaround expectations.

If the dental lab has a lean technician team yet claims to do everything in-house, they may be secretly outsourcing the work overseas. The problem is not outsourcing but lack of transparency.

There are many good outsourcing dental labs that do a great job of coordinating the shipments and running each case through a quality control team locally. They are also able to track down a case speedily and swiftly resolve an issue in the background. At end of the day, you only expectation of a customer is to make sure the job is well done to the right quality and specifications.

#4: What are your quality assurance procedures?

One of the things you are trying hardest to minimise when working with a dental lab has to be that of a remake. Mistakes by the lab can culminate in costly remakes and worse customer dissatisfaction, that will adversely impact your practice reputation.

While poor communication between the dentist and lab technicians is often the main culprit, the lack of a standardised quality assurance process can help to significantly lower the rate of errors.

In a healthy QC pipeline, you will find the lab staff having a clear understanding of work orders. There will also be proper documentation of protocols, random batch inspections, the use of an automated tracking system and certified products and materials. Even if the cases are outsourced, these protocols are still requested by the customer. Every case is checked locally by trained technicians before it goes out to the customer.

With strategically appointed QC checkpoints in place, you will be able to have the full confidence in the quality and reliability of the restoration work produced by your lab partner.

#5: Do you have any case studies or examples of work you’ve done in the past?

An experienced, competent and certified dental laboratory should have an extensive portfolio featuring samples of their previous projects for review upon request. They should also be willing to provide references from their existing customers who can speak highly about their professional work relationship and the work they’ve done.

Along with an impressive portfolio, they should be armed with information about the different types of materials that were used on each patient case, and speak freely about the price of each as they relate to the specific case.

Before visiting the lab, take a good hard look at some of the previous cases that other lab technicians have accomplished for you to be used as a basis for comparison. Ask to see samples of cases that are relevant to your own area of expertise so that you can compare and contrast with a keener sense of what to look out for. Bear in mind that sample pictures cal only reveal so much.

You should also ask to review physical samples of the work they are currently doing – whether work-in-progress or finished work – for other customers. You may even ask politely the process behind each of the prosthetic outcomes. This will give you an idea of how their current process works, which may help you anticipate potential problems or difficulties should you decide to use them for yourself.

Best way to locate quality and experienced dental lab is by testing

Let’s say the lab visit was an incredible success and you feel that they have answered all your queries as professionally and competently as you have hoped. What’s the next step? Do you sign on its Platinum membership (if your lab has a loyalty plan) on the spot?

That’s not a sound decision. You should think of the meeting as a first date. You wouldn’t rush out to buy the engagement ring the day after, would you? Similarly, you would be better served testing out the relationship. Send a single case or maybe three cases just to get an idea of the process, work rate and output.

No two lab technicians are the same. Same goes for the dentist. How two parties, with different personalities, habits and behaviours, are able to interact and achieve common goals together is as much as art form as it is a mystery. The point I’m trying to make is that nobody knows!

Just like Rome wasn’t built in a day, a dentist-lab technician relationship takes time to develop and advance. As much as you are finding out about the lab through this “honeymoon” process, they are learning your preferences one case at a time.