Chair time
Also called: chairside time
Chair time is the time a patient spends in the dental chair for an appointment, and the time the practice sets aside in its schedule for it. A practice has a fixed number of chair hours in a day, so an appointment that cannot go ahead, for example because a lab case is not back, is lost time.
How it shows up between practice and lab
A lab case touches chair time twice, at the preparation or scan and again at the seat appointment.
The second visit only works if the case is in the building. When it is not, the chair is booked with nothing to do, and the patient has taken time off for the trip.
Remakes and adjustments cost chair time too, because the patient comes back for work that was already scheduled once.
Protecting chair time means knowing a case will be late while the appointment can still be moved.
Read more in how to protect chair time when lab cases run late and why dental lab cases go missing, and how to stop it.
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