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next, day by day, week by week. It’s not
designed to give you flexibility.
But what if, during that patient’s last
hygiene visit, you spotted this opportu-
nity and built in some extra time in this
appointment, so that you can say to her,
“
Thanks to CEREC, we can get this done
right now.” Sure, it can be scary to reserve
extra time in the schedule for what is
still just a possibility, but I can assure
you that having faith in your ability to
communicate the value of “in the now”
will usually pay off. And what’s the worst
that can happen if it doesn’t? You spend
the time educating a patient and moving
them up the value spectrum from tooth-
based to mouth-based comprehensive
care. Or you provide needed clinical care
for a patient in another chair so they
don’t have to come back for an extra visit.
Even if, sometimes, that doesn’t happen,
it’s still a relatively small price to pay to
be an agile practice.
It all comes down to organizing your
practice systems in a way that allows
you to be flexible so you can, when-
ever possible, be complete with patients
while they are there in front of you. That
means organizing your appointment
book in a smart, strategic way. It means
delegating the right duties to the right
team members to streamline the process
and free up more clinical time for you.
It means constantly thinking in smart,
creative ways about how to get the most
from this incredible resource that allows
you to be so in tune with what patients, as
consumers, are looking for today.
For dentistry — a profession that has
been mostly locked into the same busi-
ness model for decades — CEREC repre-
sents the opportunity to become agile
and to compete for consumer attention in
an exciting, progressive way. To do that,
though, you have to stop thinking of it as
“
just another clinical tool.” You have to
think of it as the catalyst for a new way of
life. And you have to knock down those
stubborn barriers.
B u t Wa i t,
T h e r e ’ s M o r e . . .
Creating a responsive, agile practice
means thinking about how dentistry
fits into the world around us.
This article touched on a few themes
I have covered in two e-books that are
available for free at speareducation.com/
everythingimtiaz.
Trust and Value: A Field Guide
to Today’s Dental Patients
examines the five types of
patients in every practice, how
they value dental care and what
motivates them.
The Patient As Consumer:
Mastering Value Essentials for
Today’s Dentistry
looks into how
patients and dental practices are
affected by the new consumer l
andscape, the common myths and
fundamental truths about how value is
really created, and what that value means, in real terms, to the average practice.
The Power of Digital Dentistry: The Impact of CEREC in the New Consumer
Landscape
was inspired by my experience preparing for the CEREC 27 and a
half event this summer. In it, I talk about some significant trends in the world
today, what it means for dentistry, and how CEREC can help you capitalize
in a world of exciting change.
This title available at hub.cerecdoctors.com/download-power-of-digital-dentistry/.
performed, but most CEREC owners —
eventhosewhohaveusedit andlovedit for
years — are not close to getting full value
from this truly remarkable technology.
That’s because they are approaching it
from a limited perspective, viewing it as
an incremental add-on, rather than as a
game-changer to be fully integrated into
every element of the practice. As much
they love what CEREC can do clinically,
and asmuch as they are embracing change
by introducing it to the practice, they are
still thinking in terms of fitting it into the
context of the way they have always done
things. But revolutionary technologies
demand revolutionary thinking.
Consider this scenario: You have a
patient in the hygiene chair who needs
a crown. You explain to her that, thanks
to CEREC, she can now schedule an
appointment to get it done in a single visit.
That’s one way to do it.
But why do you do it that way? It’s
because the traditional appointment book
protocol is organized to have you move
in an orderly way from one patient to the