How dental labs onboard a new practice: a first-case checklist

The first few cases decide whether a new practice keeps sending. A dentist who tries a lab is comparing it, case by case, with the labs they already use.

So set the practice up before the first case arrives. A short setup call, a one-page preferences sheet and a check-in after the first case cover most of what goes wrong in the first month.

This guide walks through each of those, the first case itself, and the three mistakes that lose a new practice early.

Why the first cases matter

Few practices send everything to one lab. Dr. Joel Gaudet, the dentist who founded Tusko, puts it plainly:

“I still use two or three different labs, because this lab is my favourite for implants, this one for crowns, and this one for dentures.”

Dr. Joel Gaudet, Wave Dentistry

That is the position a new lab is in. The practice already has a favourite for every kind of case, and it is trying you against one of them.

The first case is the audition for one slot. If it goes well, the second case comes, and the lab becomes the favourite for that restoration. If it goes badly, the practice goes back to the lab it already trusted and nobody calls to say so.

Nothing about that is unfair. A dentist is answerable to the patient in the chair, and a known lab is the safe choice until a new one proves itself. How to get more dentists to send cases to your lab covers winning the trial. This guide is about what happens once you have.

The setup call

Ask for twenty to thirty minutes with the dentist and the office manager together. Each answers half the questions, and a call with only one of them leaves the other half to guesswork.

The dentist decides the clinical preferences: materials, margins, contacts, occlusion, and how shade is communicated. The office manager decides the logistics: who to call, when cases are picked up, how invoices should arrive.

Go into the call with the preferences sheet in front of you, and fill it in as you talk. Two things need an explicit agreement before you hang up.

How cases arrive. Which intraoral scanner the practice uses, whether scans come through the scanner’s portal or by another route, and what the paper or digital Rx will look like. Ask to see one from their current lab, if they are willing.

How questions get answered. Who at the practice answers a question about a case, how they want to be reached, and how fast you can expect a reply. Agree the same in return: who at the lab answers, and how quickly.

End the call by reading the sheet back. The practice hears what the lab understood, and corrects it then, instead of on the first case.

The preferences sheet

One page, kept where everyone at the lab can see it, and updated whenever the practice tells you something new. A sheet in the owner’s head helps the owner and nobody else.

The new-practice setup sheet

A checklist of what a lab records about a new practice, in four groups. People: contacts and the best times to reach them, and who answers questions on each side. Files: scanner and file delivery, shade system and photo habits. The work: materials by restoration, and margin, contact and occlusion preferences. Logistics and money: pickup and delivery times, the turnaround they can count on, the remake policy, and billing and statements.

People

• Contacts and the best times to reach themThe dentist for clinical questions, the office manager for the rest
• Who answers questions on each side, and how fastAgreed in both directions on the setup call

Files

• Scanner and file deliveryWhich scanner, which portal or route, and what the Rx looks like
• Shade system and photo habitsWhich guide, and whether photos come with a shade tab in frame

The work

• Materials by restorationTheir default for a posterior crown, an anterior, an implant, a denture
• Margin, contact and occlusion preferencesHow they like contacts and occlusion, and what they adjust chairside

Logistics and money

• Pickup and delivery timesWhich days, what time, and where the case pan waits
• The turnaround they can count onYour real working days by case type, with the rush option
• The remake policyShared before the first case, so the first remake is no argument
• Billing and statementsPer case or monthly, who receives it, and how they pay

A few of these deserve a word.

The turnaround they can count on. Quote the turnaround you hit on an ordinary week, by case type, and say which days the clock runs. A practice books the seat appointment on that number. A quote you beat builds trust, and a quote you miss costs a patient a second visit.

The remake policy. Give it to the practice before the first case, when nobody has a stake in it. How to write a dental lab remake policy practices respect has a one-page outline.

Billing and statements. Ask how they want the invoice, and whether anything on it will surprise the person who pays. A fee for a rush, a model or a shipment is fine when it was agreed on the sheet.

Materials by restoration. Write down their default for each kind of case, and the cases where they want to be asked. Most of the questions a lab sends a practice in the first month are answered by this line.

Running the first case

Treat the first case as the proof of everything the sheet promised. Three habits carry it.

Check the Rx the day it arrives

Open the case the day it comes in, before it reaches the bench. Compare the Rx against the sheet: tooth, material, shade, margin, due date, and whether the scan opens cleanly.

A gap found on day one costs a message. The same gap found at the bench costs a day, and the practice feels it as a late case. Incomplete prescriptions covers what to check and what can start without an answer.

Ask every question in one round

Gather every question before you send any. One message with three questions gets one reply. Three messages over three days get three interruptions, and the practice learns that your lab is work to deal with.

Send the questions to the person the sheet names, by the route the sheet names, and say which answers are holding the case and which are not. Then start on whatever can start.

Ship it with a short note

When the case goes out, add three or four lines: what you made, the material and shade used, anything you adjusted and why, and a line inviting the dentist to tell you how it seated.

The note does two jobs. It shows the practice that someone at the lab was paying attention, and it gives the dentist a reason to reply, which is the start of the second case.

The first-month check-in

Two check-ins, both short. The first is after the first case is seated. The second is about a month in, when the practice has sent enough to have an opinion.

Ask three questions, and write the answers on the sheet.

• What should we keep doing? The answer tells you what the practice noticed, which is often not what the lab was proudest of.
• What should we change? Ask it directly. A practice that was never asked will go quiet rather than complain.
• What did your other lab do that we did not? Asked without defensiveness, this is the most useful question a new lab can put to a dentist.

Then change what they asked for, and say so in the next case’s note. A practice that sees its feedback land in the next case has a reason to keep sending.

The second check-in is also when to confirm the logistics: pickup times still right, invoices arriving as agreed, the remake policy understood. How dental labs keep practices sending cases describes the monthly review that follows once the practice is settled.

Mistakes that lose a new practice early

Three come up again and again, and each one traces back to the setup rather than to anyone involved.

Silence when a case runs late. A late case with a message the day before is a schedule change. A late case the practice discovers when the patient is in the chair is the last case. Decide on the setup call how you will tell them, and tell them the moment you know.

Asking the same question twice. The dentist answered the shade question on Tuesday, and someone else at the lab asks it on Thursday. The practice concludes nobody at the lab talks to each other. Keep every answer with the case, where the next person can read it.

A surprise on the invoice. A charge the office manager did not expect, however small, turns the first statement into a phone call. Every fee that could appear should be on the sheet before the first case.

All three are versions of one problem: the practice has to call to find out. How dental labs can cut “where’s my case?” calls deals with the status side of it, and the lab ROI calculator puts a number on what those calls cost.

Where a shared case fits

Everything above works on paper and a phone. What a shared case changes is where the sheet, the questions and the notes live.

In Tusko, the Rx, the scans and every message sit on the case, so the Tuesday answer is there for whoever opens the case on Thursday. The practice sees each stage, New, In Production, Ready and Out for Delivery, without calling. The first-case note is a message on the case, and the next person to open it reads the whole history.

See how it works for labs.