All News

Dr. Mark Colonna lives and practices in Whitefish, Mo., a small community of 6,300 only a few minutes’ drive from stunning Glacier National Park. The park encompasses 1,013,572 acres of alpine forest, snow-capped peaks and 37 glaciers. Despite the ruggedness of the land, Dr. Colonna’s practice is anything but rustic. He is a strong advocate of laser dentistry, being the first dentist to use only a laser to prep a crown, and he uses the cloud to manage his practice.

Earlier this year, I competed in the first North American Candulor KunstZahnWerk® “Art of Denture” competition featuring Candulor’s “Swiss art of Prosthetics” and Camlog’s “perfect fit” implants.

Adding a digital radiography system brings a range of operational improvements and efficiencies to a practice, and despite significant initial costs, these systems can even save a practice money over the long term. However, if the new, high-tech gear is not properly used and cared for, practices can find the price tag unexpectedly growing and eating away at the return on their investment.

While dental organizations warn that patient safety is at stake, California and other states are exploring dental therapy models to expand the dental workforce and to address the problem of people going without oral healthcare.

Distar, provider of the TheraSnore Family of oral appliances for the treatment of snoring and Obstructive Sleep Apnea, received “2012 New Mexico Small Business Exporter of the Year.” 

Modern dentistry provides the dental team with many options for restoring the oral cavity. The newer tools like digital impressions, CAD/CAM models and restorations, and full-contour milled restorations, allow us to do many things that were not available in the past.

Planmeca, maker of the ProMax 3D imaging system, announced Friday that it has named Henry Schein, Inc. as a US distributor of its full line of dental equipment, software and other products, including its category-leading digital imaging products

Putting itself further behind it's economy line of Artic denture teeth, Heraeus recently announced a 3-year warranty to back the brand. The 3-year warranty has already been in place for the company's premium Mondial teeth lines and it's mid-priced Basic teeth.

Entering into its fourth cycle of honorees, you could say the Pride Institute “Best of Class” Technology Award is entering its senior year-with all the enthusiasm, maturity and eagerness to make its mark in the world that metaphor suggests.

Permitting fully automated and shrinkage-compensating polymerization of denture base material, the IvoBase® System consists of a PMMA-based denture base material and a custom injector. The IvoBase Acrylic material combines the advantages of heat- and cold-curing denture base resins, meeting the requirements of both. The hybrid material’s initial residual monomer content is <1.5%. IvoBase High Impact also is available for cases where high fracture resistance is desired.

The lab Located in Modesto, Calif., since opening its doors in the late 1970s, Hamilton Dental Design is a crown and bridge lab that also handles implant cases. The lab currently employs five technicians and two lab assistants.

In ceramic technology development, we must recognize that pressing and milling is the newest in state-of-the-art technology, or maybe not art but science. So where did the art go?

Straumann® CARES® System 7.0 software gives users full flexibility to choose their workflow-validated or external (open)-through a single system. The validated workflow provides direct access to precise, high-quality materials and restorations through Straumann’s centralized milling facilities and pre-set design parameters. Customized abutments for Straumann bone level and tissue level implant platforms are available in Zr02 and Ti materials.

On March 11, 2011, a devastating earthquake and tsunami rocked Japan. Millions of people were glued to the images of the maelstrom that ensued. Few maintained that level of interest as the Japanese started on the less glamorous path of recovery.

April 2010 | Dental Products Report Handling the patient complaint

Sometimes it’s just not worth it. If a client is driving you and your staff crazy, there comes a point when you just have to end the professional relationship. Whether it’s the number of remakes or the late payments that have you pulling your hair out, you have to know when and how to let go. The dentist who just won’t listen

Health in Reach announced earlier this week that it would be merging with its largest competitor, PriceDoc. Both services offer an online platform where consumers can go to compare prices on dental services. Both companies will now operate under the Health in Reach corporate brand, and Health in Reach CEO Scott Sangster will remain in the top executive role.

Google Places is out. The search engine giant announced Wednesday that it has updated its local search platform with Google Plus Local, which will interface with Zagat, in efforts to encourage interaction on their social network Google+.

If you’re not communicating with your lab technician, you’re losing money.

You’ve noticed one of your patients has lost a lot of weight and seems to have trouble focusing during appointments-assuming she shows up. Or maybe another dentist in the practice spends a lot of time in his office with the door closed, only to come out acting much differently than when he went in.

You want to be friendly with your patients, to build a rapport that helps keep them loyal to you and your practice. What you don’t want to do is become too familiar or so comfortable with your patients that you end up taking it too far, and saying something that leaves them feeling uncomfortable and maybe even looking for a new practice.

I’ve been using the Planmeca's ProMax since early 2010 when I expanded my office. The Planmeca sales rep presented it to me and when I saw what the pan could do I really liked it. Because I was modernizing my office and expanding it, I thought adding the ProMax was the natural way to take it, to move into digital and go paperless. What would you say are the ProMax’s main benefits?

July 14, 2009 | dentalproductsreport.com web exclusiveWhen patients jump the border

The whiter, the better. That’s how some people feel about their smile. They want their teeth white and bright, even if the white they’re going for doesn’t look natural. Although it’s rare, there are patients who will go to great lengths to get what they feel is the perfect white smile, from overdoing the whitening strips to over brushing to trying to buy more product from you than they really need. 

It all started with a scared little girl who found comfort in a puppy. The little girl, Maya, came to Dr. Allan Pike’s pediatric dentistry practice in Portland for a pulpotomy, a procedure they needed to get done right away. But things weren’t going well, at least not until dental assistant Julie Dubansky offered to bring in her puppy, Madison. That seemed to calm Maya down, and was the beginning of what some of Dr. Pike’s patients drive as many as three hours to experience: Dog day at the dental office.

The DPR Technology Census has been a cornerstone of the DPR Editorial Calendar for a number of years. Part of what makes the tech census a must-read year after year is the fact that it helps dentists benchmark themselves. It's not always about what technology is available, but who is using it, who plans to use it, and what barriers to entry exist.

July 29, 2009 | dentalproductsreport.com web exclusiveWhen patients know more than you The Internet makes it easy to find details on dentistry and oral health, but does access to m

Jane Pak, CEO of the National Association of Women Business Owners, spoke with Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Bill Dorfman to put together a top 10 list of the most useful small business tips for dental practices.

Sometimes it’s worth the risk. That’s what a Wisconsin-based dentist decided when one of his patients asked him out. He wasn’t sure if it was a good idea at first, but after talking with her more and realizing how much they had in common, he changed his mind. “I thought about it for awhile before I responded to her interest in me,” he said. “I was hesitant because I was worried that if it didn’t work out, I would lose her as a patient and there could be some negative ramifications.”

The recent merger between Health in Reach and PriceDoc will allow dentists and prospective patients to connect and for those prospective patients to compare prices on dental care before booking an appointment. The online platform allows dentists to offer cost-saving deals to consumers who are paying for dental care out-of-pocket.