Digital vs paper lab slips: what changes when the Rx goes digital

A paper lab slip and a digital Rx ask for the same details. What changes is what the form can do with them.

A paper slip accepts whatever is written and travels in one copy. A digital Rx can insist on a date, carry the scans, and be read in two buildings at once.

This guide covers what each does well, the three things people mean by “digital”, and how to switch without losing a case.

What each form can do with the same details

Two columns compare a paper lab slip with a digital Rx. Paper is fast to start and suits a sketch, but it cannot object to a missing detail, exists once and arrives with the case. A digital Rx insists on the essentials, travels with the scans and is read by both sides at once, and the first few cases take longer.

A paper lab slip

Accepts whatever is written

• Yes: Fast to start, and suits a sketch
• No: Cannot object to a missing shade or date
• No: Exists once, with the lab
• No: Arrives with the case, so the lab cannot read ahead

A digital Rx

A structured form on a shared case

• Yes: Insists on the essentials
• Yes: Travels with the scans
• Yes: Read by the practice and the lab at once
• No: Takes longer for the first few cases

What a paper slip does well

Paper has lasted for good reasons.

• It is fast to start. A pen, a pad, and no login.
• It travels with the work. The slip sits in the case pan beside the impression it describes.
• It suits a sketch. A quick drawing of a pontic or a clasp is easier with a pen than on a screen.
• Everyone knows it. No training, and no outage.

For a practice that sends impressions to one lab down the road, a good paper form still works.

Where paper lets a case down

The same slip has five weak points.

• It cannot object. A missing shade or date goes through without a word.
• It exists once. The lab has the original. The practice has a carbon copy at best.
• It arrives with the case. The lab cannot read it ahead, so it cannot plan or ask early.
• It gets retyped. Someone at the lab keys it into their own system, and a slip of the finger changes a tooth.
• Handwriting. A 3 and an 8 look alike at the end of a long day.

Scans make it worse. The scan goes by one route and the lab slip by another, and somebody has to match them.

Dr. Joel Gaudet, the dentist who founded Tusko, describes what that matching felt like in his practice:

“Even though I’m a millennial, I really don’t like spending time on the computer zipping up files, emailing them, typing it all out, then typing that name into another spreadsheet.”

Dr. Joel Gaudet, Wave Dentistry

Three things people call a digital Rx

“Digital” covers three quite different things. They solve different amounts of the problem.

The first is paper on a screen. The second ties the Rx to the scan, with little room for detail.

The third is what this guide means by a digital Rx: a form that knows what a crown needs, attached to the files and the conversation.

What changes for the practice

Four things are different on the first day.

The form asks. Pick “implant crown” and it asks for the system and the connection. Nothing is left to memory.

Your usual answers are filled in. Preferences for contacts and occlusion can be set once, so each Rx records only what differs.

The files are attached. There is no second email, and no matching by patient name.

There is a record. Six months later, what was ordered for that tooth is one search away.

It costs a little at first. The first few cases take longer while the team learns where things are.

What changes for the lab

The lab sees the larger change.

The Rx arrives before the work. A technician can read it, spot a gap and ask while the courier is still on the road.

Nothing is retyped. The teeth, the material and the dates arrive as data, so the lab’s record starts out correct.

Questions have a home. A query sits on the case, beside the scan it is about, and so does the answer.

Intake gets quicker. Checking a case in becomes a read-through instead of a typing job.

Both sides read the same record. When a remake is discussed, the practice and the lab look at one Rx, and nobody works from a copy.

Incomplete prescriptions shows what those gaps cost a lab when the form cannot catch them.

What a good digital form looks like

Not every digital form is an improvement. A good one has six qualities.

• It is short for simple work. A single crown should take a minute.
• It changes with the case type. Implant fields appear for implant cases and stay hidden otherwise.
• It remembers the dentist. Usual materials and preferences are filled in already.
• It insists on the essentials. Tooth, restoration, material, shade and the date.
• It keeps a free-text note. Some instructions will never fit a field.
• It works where the Rx is written. On the computer or tablet in the operatory.

Try any form with five real cases before you adopt it. If it is slower than paper on the fifth, it will not last.

What does not change

A digital Rx is still a prescription. The dentist decides what to order, and the form only records it.

It still needs photos for shade. A field marked “A2” says as little on a screen as it does on paper.

Someone still has to fill it in properly. A required field can be satisfied with “see notes”, and a lab should push back when it is.

Physical work still travels. An impression needs a label that ties it to its digital Rx, or it becomes an unidentified tray.

How to switch without losing a case

Change one thing at a time.

1. Lay your paper form beside the digital one. Check that every field you rely on has a place to go.
2. Start with one kind of case. Single crowns from scans are the simplest.
3. Start with one lab. Choose the one you talk to most.
4. Run both for two weeks. Keep sending the paper slip as a backup until the lab says it no longer reads it.
5. Agree on a label for physical cases. A case number on the bag is enough.
6. Stop the paper on a named day. Tell the whole team, and remove the pads.

Step six matters more than it looks. While the pads are in the drawer, someone will reach for one on a busy afternoon.

What to tell the lab

Give the lab a date and a short list before you start.

• The day the first digital Rx will arrive, and for which kind of case
• How impressions and models will be labelled
• Who at the practice to tell if a digital Rx looks wrong

Ask the lab to report every detail it still had to ask for. That list shows what the form is missing.

Keeping the record

A prescription is part of the patient’s record, and of the lab’s. Both sides need to be able to find it later.

Paper needs a filing cabinet and a system. A digital Rx needs a login for each person and a rule about who can see what.

Ask any software vendor where prescriptions are stored and who can open them. PIPEDA and dental software lists the questions.

For what belongs on the form in the first place, see our dental lab prescription checklist.

Tusko uses a structured Rx. The practice sends it with the scans, the photos and the date in one submission, and the lab reads it on the same case.

See how it looks for practices and for labs.