Practice Growth: Patient Satisfaction is Key

Patient satisfaction is key to ensuring a dental practice is thriving. Review sites and personal referrals are still the number one channels for patients looking for dental services.

Historically, referrals from family and friends have been vital sources for attracting new patients. In addition, social proof has become a significant source for attracting new patients through expanded online marketing channels.

Patient satisfaction is crucial to the overall customer experience and directly related to a practice’s growth and patient retention.

Patients who have a great experience will be more loyal and share their experiences. Dental practices that focus on the patient experience can create lifelong patients that become vocal raving fans.

Touchpoints

A dental practice must rely heavily on its dental laboratory for many touchpoints with its patients. Some of the main factors that influence whether a patient feels satisfied with their experience during a restorative procedure are as follows:

Patient satisfaction is directly correlated with clinical outcomes. Dental labs play a significant role in helping clinicians ensure successful clinical outcomes. Burbank Dental Lab has built its reputation on supporting dentists through providing:

Lab and Practice Synergy

Burbank Dental Lab understands the synergy between a dental lab and a dentist to ensure patient satisfaction. Patients who have gone through a flawless dental experience where their desired results were achieved or better yet exceeded become the best marketing tools a dental practice can have.

Providing an exceptional restorative experience is another area where patient satisfaction can be met and even exceeded. This is why Burbank Dental Lab created the Smiles By Design team. Through the Smiles By Design process, cases are handled step-by-step, ensuring the patients’ goals and the dentist’s directions are captured, communicated, understood, and implemented. This provides a predictable end result.

The Smiles By Design team at Burbank Dental Lab is trained in advanced ceramics and has completed hundreds of hours of advanced training from the Spear Institute, Las Vegas Institute, and many over-the-shoulder programs alongside dentists. This investment in Burbank Dental Lab’s technical staff equates to excellence in occlusal principles, case design, and ceramics.

The Smiles By Design method will include the following:

• Evaluate preop models
• Review photos
• Analyze functional considerations
• Review patient goals and overall case concerns
• Design a diagnostic wax-up to determine the possibilities, incorporate the patient goals and determine any limitations to achieving the desired results.

Once the plan has been worked out and the patient understands and approves the treatment, the following is required:

1. Final approval of wax-up
2. Preparation guides
3. Bite registration, including a facebow (Kois Dento Facial Analyzer)
4. Impressions
5. Temporization
6. Final Temporary approval
7. Photos taken with the temporaries
8. Material selection is finalized
9. Fabrication of final restorations by a Smiles By Design® technician
10. Quality control to ensure all aspects of the plan were followed. Margin integrity is checked as well as fit, shape, and color.

The Smiles By Design team is available to work through your restorative cases, determine potential issues, provide feedback, and create solutions to help reach the patient’s goals. The whole focus of the team is to ensure the patient’s needs are met and even exceeded.

Digital Workflows

Patient satisfaction is also linked to advanced technologies

within a dental practice. Digital workflows provide faster and more comfortable experiences for patients. Intraoral scanners, for example, can increase accuracy and provide a tool for patient education as the images can be shared with the patient and discussed in real-time.

In contrast, traditional impression methods need to be sent to the dental lab to be processed (see above image). If there are any issues, the patient will need to return for new impressions. Most patients, when asked, prefer digital impressions over the traditional methods.

Intraoral scanners provide impressions that can be instantly shared with the laboratory and evaluated while the patient is in the office.

In addition, the Burbank Dental Lab digital team is available to review scans and advise on preparation design and determine the accuracy of the impression before dismissing the patient. The benefits of intraoral scanners:

There is no question that to be truly competitive today, businesses must create exceptional customer experiences. Dental practices that provide this level of patient satisfaction make patients who are true fans.

Burbank Dental Lab understands the importance of supporting dentists so that their practices continue to thrive. Call or chat with a Smiles By Design team member to help you plan your next large restorative case.