Every dental practice’s first priority is to ensure successful clinical outcomes for its patients. Increasingly, however, practices are feeling pressure to deliver those outcomes as efficiently as possible due to a combination of time-constrained patients and practice profitability challenges. Within the dental arena, DSOs have become particularly known for their insistence that outstanding clinical outcomes and practice productivity can and must go hand-in-hand. Fortunately, DSOs – and all practices – have more access than ever before to products that facilitate this dual goal. One manufacturer that has dedicated itself to developing and supplying such products is DMG.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), dental caries and periodontal disease have historically been considered the most important global oral health burdens. Today, dental caries affects 60-90% of school-aged children and nearly 100% of the adult population in industrialized countries1. Since all caries start as incipient caries, there is a clear need for easy-to-use products that address incipient caries, without drilling or anesthesia, if possible.
A recent meta-analysis of 14 studies evaluated for WSLs indicated the incidence rate of new carious lesions that developed during orthodontic treatment was 45.8%, with a prevalence rate of 68.4% in patients under orthodontic treatment.2 This study clearly addresses the need for products to treat white spot lesions, or WSLs, among orthodontic patients.
Icon caries infiltrant by DMG is the only product of its kind; it allows incipient caries to be treated without time-consuming and patient-unfriendly drilling and anesthesia, while also doubling as a highly effective way to treat smooth surface white spot lesions.
Icon, the breakthrough caries infiltrant, has a proven track record of generating additional revenue streams. Patients value the product’s ability to treat incipient caries without drilling or anesthesia, and post-orthodontic patients are grateful that it can treat their white spot lesions. Marketed properly, these unique benefits – bolstered by Icon’s large social media following (#IconbyDMG) – can help DSOs attract and impress patients who ultimately end up staying with the practice for the remainder of their dental care.
Products and innovations like this, which streamline dental professionals’ daily routines, can be particularly beneficial to dental support organizations because DSOs place an emphasis on blending outstanding clinical outcomes with practice productivity.
DMG offers other clinically proven products that are highly popular with dentists and revenue generators for DSOs. Two such award-winning products are Luxatemp, the provisional crown and bridge material line, and LuxaCore Z Dual, the core build-up and post cementation material.
For decades, Luxatemp has remained the unquestioned choice of dental professionals who require a provisional crown and bridge material that delivers life-like esthetics, exceptional strength and predictability.
- Luxatemp allows clinicians to create beautiful, natural-looking temporaries in all lighting conditions.
- Its low porosity and high surface hardness make it highly abrasion-resistant and easy to cut and polish.
- Its Bisacryl composition facilitates outstanding durability and low shrinkage that eliminate the need to remarginate and make it easy to remove.
Whether it’s Luxatemp Fluorescence’s superior esthetics, Luxatemp Ultra’s industry-leading flexural strength and break resistance, or the exceptional reliability of Luxatemp Plus, this industry-leading line continues to deliver the unmatched clinical results and quality that are synonymous with the Luxatemp name.
Earning the 2019 Dental Advisor Core Composite Preferred Product award, LuxaCore Z Dual is the ultra-strong, ultra-reliable core build-up and post cementation material created with zirconia, that cuts identical to natural dentin.
- It has exceptionally high compressive and flexural strength for enhanced stability.
- Its DMG patented nanotechnology helps prevents particle agglomeration.
- Provides an ideal film thickness similar to a precision cement.
- It has enhanced flow for better handling and releases fluoride.
- The material is stable, firmer and easier to form than other core materials.
- It is available in the Automix System with three shades: A3, Light Opaque and Blue.
Ecosite Bulk Fill (free sample) not only delivers dramatic time savings versus the traditional multi-layer technique using a flowable composite, it also produces more durable and esthetic restorations.
- Moreover, it avoids the two major drawbacks traditionally associated with bulk fill composites: compromised esthetics due to high translucence, and insufficient time to pack the restoration.
- Ecosite Bulk Fill further optimizes productivity with a maximum depth of 5mm in a single-layer, one quick 20-second light cure, low shrinkage stress, excellent adaptability, packability and handling.
- It also delivers high polishability, fluoride release, and truly exceptional esthetics.
- It does not require a capping layer or stick to instruments.
But outstanding products, excellent clinical outcomes, productivity, and profitability are not all that DSOs require. Consistently exceptional customer service is of the utmost importance.
DMG America’s strategy within the DSO space is to ensure an outstanding working relationship with decision makers within the DSOs and emerging dental groups in order to fully understand their needs and measure how those needs are being met by DMG. They work closely with distributor partners to initiate and cultivate long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with DSOs and groups at both the headquarters and local levels.
DMG America effectively handles onboarding through:
- Educational onboarding/training at the DSO support
center (headquarters) level - Educational onboarding/training at the local
(in-office) level - Free webinars and CE
- User case studies and reports
- Podcasts
- E-books and other helpful literature
In the next five years, expect to see the continuation, and perhaps an acceleration, of the migration to digital dentistry and 3D printing, which offers the potential of significant productivity gains that are so valued by DSOs. DMG plans to play a leading role in providing many of the materials needed for the digital/3D printing space. They also foresee a need for more products – and certainly for more materials – that emphasize ease-of-use and efficiency.
References:
1) Petersen PE, Bourgeois D, Ogawa H, Estupinan-Day S, Ndiaye C. The global burden of oral diseases and risks to oral health. Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 2005;83(9):661–669.
2) Sundararaj D, Venkatachalapathy S, Tandon A, Pereira A. Critical evaluation of incidence and prevalence of white spot lesions during fixed orthodontic appliance treatment: A meta-analysis. J Int Soc Prev Community Dent. 2015;5:433–9.