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Stocking Quality Products for a Streamline Practice

As a dentist who runs a “bread and butter” dental practice, I understand how important it is to buy the right products. Our practice has a reputation for providing both high quality work and high quality experiences for our patients all while remaining a PPO office. Since we are a PPO office, sustaining the balance of quality and cost is absolutely essential. Luckily, my practice has had more than 40 years of experience perfecting this stocking process.

When you talk about quality and cost of products, it starts to become a discussion of what comes first; the chicken or the egg. For us, we start with quality. Higher quality can come with a higher initial price tag, but the cost of losing patients due to poor quality products is much higher. Not only this, but quality products can reduce costs in other areas. For instance, when considering composites, our practice requires a high quality everyday composite that can provide easy shade-matching and we found with the OMNICHROMA single-shade composite family from Tokuyama Dental. Because of these characteristics, we are also able to save money eliminating the need to have so many different shades in stock. Along with their incredible shade-matching ability, these composites are very polishable and provide invisible margins, two qualities that are essential in longevity of restorations. Longevity means satisfied patients and satisfied patients means higher production for the practice.

Another important consideration when purchasing restorative products is productefficiency. One of the best oral surgeons I assisted prior to going to dental school is so good at what he does because he has a preset, consistent process he follows every time. It makes him both efficient and proficient. I try to implement the same consistency in my practice so the burs and products I use are imperative. My restorative preparation process consists of three core burs; a 330 diamond, a 1 mm straight cylinder fine diamond, and a size 4 round bur. I predominantly use Garrison rings with Palodent matrix bands for composite fillings. For finishing, I always reduce the occlusal and remove flash with a finishing carbide football, shape embrasure spaces and round interproximal with a fine diamond Christmas tree bur, and then finish with my favorite polisher, Enhance Finishing Cup. As I previously mentioned, I prioritize a well--polished and quality restoration. It’s the simplicity of stocking fewer, but effective core burs paired with quality, polishable composites like OMNICHROMA products that allows for my practice to consistently and efficiently produce beautiful work at a reasonable cost.

Some other miscellaneous products that are key ingredients to our practice’s success are our iTero scanner, intraoral camera, and our Onpharma Onset buffering pen. Our crown preps are almost exclusively scanned by our iTero scanner. It digitalizes the process, reduces chairside time, reduces impression material costs, and allows us to design beautiful crowns in house at a significantly lower cost. Patients LOVE our scanner! The IO camera has made insurance claims more streamlined and helps us show our patients various areas of concern with undeniable clarity. Lastly, and definitely not least, both our providers and our patients have been loving our new anesthetic buffering pen. It’s an affordable, quick option to get those hard to numb patients profoundly numb while also keeping them comfortable. It’s amazing how well it works and how easily we’ve been able to incorporate it into our practice! These three products have really helped us provide a luxury experience for our patients.

At the end of the day, all of us dentists are the same. We are inherently designed to be gadget geeks. We love new products, and we love new toys. The key to success, though, is finding which of those products or “toys” help your practice thrive while maintaining a healthy overhead. Quality, cost, and effectiveness are three easy considerations to make that streamline any type of practice!

Kaylee Salesky, DDS
Kaylee Salesky, DDS
My name is Kaylee Salesky and I am a recent graduate of the University of Washington School of Dentistry. In my short two years of practicing, I have managed to become a co-owner of a private practice, gotten certified in Botox and dermal fillers, published blogs for both the ADA and Tokuyama Dental, all while simultaneously bringing into the world my two beautiful daughters with my incredibly supportive husband. It's been a busy two years to say the least! Both personally and professionally, I am proud of what I've accomplished, however, even in this "dream life," I've experienced more challenges than I ever have before. Being a new dentist is tough, yet it is also the most exciting time to learn and grow in the field. My intention with this blog series is to do just that—one new dentist to another sharing some useful tips on how to not just survive, but to thrive! If you have any questions about any topics included in this series, you can always reach out to me on my Instagram @drkayleesalesky or email me at kayleesalesky@gmail.com

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