The real cost of phone tag between dental practices and labs
Phone tag between a dental practice and its lab costs staff time on both sides and days on the case. Here is how to count it, and how to cut it.
By the Tusko team
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Phone tag between a dental practice and its lab has three costs. Staff on both sides spend time on calls and messages.
The dentist gets pulled away to answer questions with no chart in front of them. And the case waits for as long as the question does.
The first cost is the easy one to count. The third is the expensive one, because the seat appointment does not wait with it.
One question, followed from start to finish
Take one case. The lab opens the Rx for a front tooth and finds no shade on it.
- Morning, at the lab. The technician sets the case aside and phones the practice.
- At the front desk. The dentist is with a patient, so the front desk takes a message.
- Between patients. The dentist reads the note. That patient’s chart is long closed.
- After lunch. The dentist calls back, and the technician is at the bench on another case.
- The next morning. The two finally speak, and the call is over in two minutes.
- Back at the bench. The case restarts, a day behind its plan.
The times are illustrative, and the shape will be familiar. The answer was quick, and reaching it took a day.
Dr. Joel Gaudet, the dentist who founded Tusko, knows the practice end of that loop:
“I was tired of logging into my email to answer one lab, then having my phone buzz because a different lab was texting me, then my front staff coming over to say the lab’s on the phone, can you run over and take this call.”
Dr. Joel Gaudet, Wave Dentistry
What it costs each side
Both sides pay, in different ways. Our two calculators put a number on each.
At the lab
A lab is on the phone for two reasons. Practices call to ask where a case is, and the lab calls out to chase a missing detail.
The lab calculator counts both. It starts from these assumptions, and you can change every one.
| Assumption | Starting value |
|---|---|
| Cases a month | 400 |
| “Where’s my case?” calls and emails a week | 45 |
| Minutes per status call | 4 |
| Cases that arrive missing something | 20% |
| Minutes to chase each one | 15 |
At those values, status calls take 780 minutes a month and chasing takes 1,200. Together that is 33 hours.
A lab’s month on the phone, at the calculator’s starting values
Three numbers from the lab calculator’s starting assumptions: 780 minutes a month on status calls, 1,200 minutes a month chasing missing details, and 33 hours a month together.
- Answering “where’s my case?” calls and emails
- 780minutes
- 45 a week, at 4 minutes each
- Chasing cases that arrive missing something
- 1,200minutes
- 20% of 400 cases, at 15 minutes each
- The two together, every month
- 33hours
- None of it appears on an invoice
None of that time appears on an invoice. Put in your own figures, because the point is your number and the defaults are only a place to start.
At the practice
The practice pays in smaller pieces, spread across more people.
The practice calculator assumes 15 minutes of staff time per case sent as a scan, and 25 for a physical case. Each extra lab adds 3 minutes a case.
It also assumes one case in four raises a question for the dentist, at 6 minutes each. That includes finding the patient again.
Its starting practice sends 40 cases a month to three labs. That works out to 16 staff hours and one hour of the dentist’s time each month.
Three labs also means three sets of habits. One wants a call, one an email and one a text, and the front desk carries that list in its head.
The dentist’s hour is the costly one. It comes straight out of the schedule, a few minutes at a time.
What each channel loses
Phone, email and text are often all in use at once. Each one drops something the question needs.
| Channel | Reaches the dentist | Carries the context | Leaves a record on the case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phone | Only if they are free | No | No |
| When they next check | Only if someone attaches it | In an inbox, away from the case | |
| Text | Quickly | No | On one person’s phone |
| A message on the case | When they open it | Yes | Yes |
Three channels also means three places to look when someone asks what was agreed.
The cost that never shows up as minutes
Count the minutes and phone tag looks like a staffing problem. The larger cost is what the delay does to the case.
A case on hold loses days it was counting on. Then the lab has to rush it, or it arrives after the patient does.
A seat appointment with no case is chair time the practice cannot fill that day. The patient has taken the time off for nothing.
Answers from memory are a second risk. A dentist replying between patients, with no chart, can get a detail wrong, and a wrong detail can end in a remake.
Remakes are common enough to plan for. Spear Education puts the average remake rate for US labs at 4%, with a range from 1% to 6% or 7%.
Why dental lab cases go missing covers the other handoffs where a case can stall.
Why phone tag happens at all
Phone tag is what happens when a question and its context travel separately.
The lab has the question. The practice has the chart. The dentist has the answer, and is in an operatory with a patient.
A phone call needs all three in the same moment. That seldom happens, so the question is passed along by people who cannot answer it.
Nobody in that chain is doing anything wrong. The channel is what fails.
Agree on when questions get answered
A lab can plan around a slow answer. It cannot plan around an unknown one.
Agree on a window with each lab. For example, a question sent before noon gets an answer by the end of that day.
At the practice, give lab questions a fixed slot. Ten minutes after the last morning patient, with the cases open, is often enough.
Decide what counts as urgent too. A case that ships tomorrow can justify pulling the dentist out of a room, and a case due next week cannot.
Five ways to cut it
- Stop the question before it starts. A complete Rx removes the reason for the call. Our dental lab prescription checklist lists what to include.
- Write the question on the case. A written question waits for the dentist. A phone call needs them now.
- Put the context beside it. The patient, the tooth, the scans and the Rx should be in view wherever the question is read. A question that needs a chart pulled will wait until someone has time to pull it.
- Agree on one channel with each lab. One place to ask means one place to look for the answer. It also means a new team member can find what was agreed last month.
- Make status visible. A practice that can see where a case is has no reason to phone and ask.
Labs can go further on the last point. How dental labs can cut “where’s my case?” calls has the detail.
What a shared case changes
All five fixes work with a shared inbox and discipline. They hold up better when the case itself carries the conversation.
On a shared case, the lab asks its question beside the Rx and the scans. The dentist answers when they are free, with everything in view.
That is how Tusko handles it. The practice and the lab open the same case, and every message stays on it.
You can see how that looks for labs and for practices.
How much time does a dental lab spend on status calls?
It depends on your volume and on how much of each case your practices can see. Count the calls for one week and multiply by the minutes each one takes. Our lab calculator starts from half a call per case at four minutes each.
Why do labs phone when they could email?
A call feels faster when a case is stopped at the bench. It is only faster if the dentist can pick up, and during patient hours that is rare.
Who at a practice should answer the lab’s questions?
Whoever wrote the Rx answers clinical questions, and that is usually the dentist. The front desk can handle dates and deliveries, provided they can see the case.
Does texting the dentist solve phone tag?
It reaches the dentist sooner. The question still arrives without the chart, leaves no record on the case, and follows the dentist home.
Sources
Related guides
A dental lab prescription has to name the patient, the teeth, the restoration, the material, the shade and the date. This checklist covers every case type.
Dental lab cases rarely get lost in transit. They go missing at the handoffs between the practice and the lab. Here is where, and how to stop it.
Feedback helps a dental lab when it is specific, prompt and tied to a case. Here is what to say after a seat, when to say it, and how to raise a problem.