How dental labs keep practices sending cases
Practices stay with the dental lab that is easy to work with. Here is what a dentist notices, the early signs a practice is drifting, and what to do.
By the Tusko team
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Practices keep sending cases to the lab that is easiest to work with. Good work is expected. A dentist assumes it of any lab they try.
What decides the next case is everything around it. Answers arrive, dates hold, and problems get fixed without a fight.
This guide covers what a dentist notices, the early signs that a practice is drifting, and a monthly routine that catches them.
What a dentist notices
A dentist rarely sees your bench. They see four things, case after case.
- How fast questions get answered. In both directions, and by someone who knows the case.
- Whether the date holds. A seat appointment is booked around it.
- How the case fits. Fewer adjustments mean less chair time for the same fee.
- How a problem is handled. One remake dealt with well can build more trust than ten clean cases.
Dr. Joel Gaudet, the dentist who founded Tusko, sends work to three labs. He is direct about what tips his choice:
“If one lab is right on it with my messages, that’s super handy for me. If a lab doesn’t use it as much, I’m always trying to bug them. It makes me want to use the lab that’s on the platform, because I want it to be efficient and fast.”
Dr. Joel Gaudet, Wave Dentistry
Speed of reply is the first item on that list for a reason. It is the part of your service a dentist feels every single day.
Early signs a practice is drifting
Many practices use more than one lab, each for a different kind of work. That changes what losing a practice looks like.
A practice seldom phones to say it is leaving. It sends its implant cases somewhere else, then its anterior work, and the rest follows.
So the question to ask each month is which kinds of case each practice still sends you. A falling total is the late sign.
Each sign below is easy to miss on its own. Two together are worth a phone call.
| Sign | What it can mean |
|---|---|
| The monthly case count drops for two months | Work is going elsewhere, or the practice is quieter |
| One type of case stops arriving | Another lab now does that work |
| Questions on your cases go unanswered for longer | You are no longer the first lab they think of |
| Remake requests arrive with less explanation | They have stopped expecting a conversation |
| Status calls from that practice go up | They no longer trust the date |
| A new dentist joins the practice | They may bring a lab with them |
None of these proves anything. They tell you where to look before the count reaches zero.
A 30-minute review each month
Retention is mostly attention. Half an hour a month, with the right list in front of you, is enough to start.
A 30-minute review, once a month
A flow of the five steps in a monthly review: list cases by practice for the last three months, mark every practice whose count or mix changed, pull the late cases, pull the remakes, and pick three practices to call.
List cases by practice
For the last three months. Total them, and split them by type of work.
Mark every change
Any practice whose count or mix moved. Up as well as down, because growth deserves a thank-you.
Pull the late cases
Note which practices they belonged to, and how each one heard about the delay.
Pull the remakes
Read what was asked for and what was made. Look for the same cause twice.
Pick three practices to call
One that grew, one that dropped, and one you have not spoken to this quarter.
The calls are short. Ask what is working, what is slow, and what they send elsewhere and why.
Write down what you hear. The same two or three complaints will come up, and those are your next projects.
Dental lab KPIs worth tracking every week goes deeper on the numbers behind this list.
Fix the frictions that come up most
The complaints tend to fall into a few groups, and each has a known fix.
- “I never know where my case is.” Give every practice a ship date and a visible stage. See how to cut “where’s my case?” calls.
- “You keep calling me with questions.” Fix the intake, so the Rx arrives complete. See incomplete prescriptions.
- “The remake was a fight.” Write a policy both sides can read before anything goes wrong. See how to write a dental lab remake policy.
- “I can’t make sense of the statement.” A clear statement is easier to pay. See invoicing and statements for dental labs.
- “I didn’t know you did that.” Tell practices what you offer and what it costs. See how Canadian dental labs build a fee schedule.
Take them one at a time. A lab that fixes its slowest handoff each quarter is a different lab in a year.
Treat a remake as the moment that counts
A remake is when a practice decides what kind of lab you are.
Answer quickly, and start by asking what happened in the chair. The dentist has just had a hard appointment and wants to be heard.
Then look at the record together. The Rx, the scans and the messages show what was asked for and what was made.
Agree on the fix and the new date in the same conversation. Then tell them what you will change so it does not repeat.
Blame helps nobody here. A remake often starts with something unclear between the two sides, and both can fix that.
Start new practices well
The first five cases from a new practice set the pattern for the next five hundred.
Call before the first case, and ask how the dentist likes contacts, occlusion and shade handled. Put the answers on file.
Introduce the person at your lab they will hear from. A name makes the first question easier to ask.
Check the first cases yourself. Send a note with each one, and ask for feedback after the first is seated.
A dentist who feels known by the fifth case has little reason to try the next lab that calls.
Winning those practices in the first place is its own subject. How to get more dentists to send cases to your lab covers it.
When a practice does leave
Some will leave whatever you do. A practice is sold, a dentist retires, or a new associate arrives with a lab they trust.
Ask why, once, and listen without arguing. The answer is the most useful thing they can still give you.
Record the reason beside the practice’s name. After a year, the list shows which reasons were yours to fix.
Leave the door open. Send the last case out as carefully as the first, and say they are welcome back.
Where a shared case fits
Every item on the dentist’s list depends on the same thing. Both sides need to see the case, its date and its messages.
Tusko puts those on one case that the practice and the lab both open. A reply reaches the dentist where the Rx and the scans already are.
See how it works for labs, or put your own numbers into the lab calculator.
More in this series for labs
Each of these goes deeper on one part of running a lab that practices stay with.
Why do dentists switch dental labs?
Seldom over one bad case. More often it is a run of small frictions, such as late cases, unanswered questions and remakes handled badly. A lab that is easy to work with gives a dentist fewer reasons to look around.
How can a lab tell a practice is about to leave?
Watch its monthly case count and the mix of work. A practice that stops sending one type of case has usually found another lab for it.
Should a lab offer a discount to keep a practice?
Find out what went wrong first. A discount on top of the same late cases and unanswered questions leaves the reason they looked elsewhere in place.
How often should a lab owner speak to each practice?
Often enough that the first call is never about a problem. For the practices that send the most work, a short check-in each quarter is a reasonable start.
Related guides
A small dental lab wins on access, memory and the cases that need attention. Here is how to choose your ground, use digital on your own terms and show it.
A dental lab gets paid faster when each invoice can be matched to a patient at a glance. Here is what to put on invoices and statements, and when.
A dental lab fee schedule starts from what each product costs to make. Here is how Canadian labs build one, with GST/HST and the federal plan in mind.