As dentists and business owners, you are always on the lookout for upgrades. Always learning, always growing. And in this Digital Age, growth without the incorporation of technology can be quite limiting. Dentistry is no different. Newer methods using digital technology are available and pretty much changing the dental treatment landscape for the better. Have you incorporated these technologies as of yet? Are you thinking about going digital but confused whether you should? Digital dentistry offers precision, speed and profits- and you should seriously look more into it to see if it is path you would like to take.
How Going Digital Can Help Your Practice
Digital dentistry helps simplify workflow. As a dentist, you are always looking for ways to provide treatments as efficiently and as accurately as possible. Computer aided designs and manufacturing provide faster and more aesthetically appealing results. Incorporating digital saves time and money both for the practice as well as for the patients.
Digital workflow is not a fad; it is predicted to be the future of dentistry, along with every other profession and business in the world. Incorporating digitally assisted solutions provides efficiency required for scaling your business. In order to scale, you need to be able to build these workflows and intellectual property assets that you can leverage through.
Define Your Purpose
Digital dentistry is amazingly efficient and lucrative, but this is an investment you should make for the right purpose. Before you go on and purchase an expensive device, you need to ask yourself why you are buying it. Whether you are doing it for the purpose of scaling your business, making big money or because you are genuinely interested in the digital solutions offered by these devices.
Unlike what most dentists believe, these machines offer digital assistance and that is about it. The technology changes the dentist. It is not that the digital technology makes the dentist’s case better. Yes, the potential is there, but it requires training. It is not just an investment of money but precious time and continuous dedication. And that requires the desire to learn about digital dentistry before anything else. So the first question you need to ask yourself is if digital dentistry is something you would like to continuously learn about? If not, then those machines would only serve as beautiful centrepieces in your office.
Learn How to Use Your Gear
So you realize you want to delve into the digital world of dentistry. Great! Next step is to learn the skill. Take seminars, courses, mentorships whatever it takes to learn about CAD CAM and the machines you’d like to invest in. Understand the basics, invest in education and know how to use the gear.
There are two forms of learning. One is to read through the instruction manuals, study the workings of the machine, and second and most important part is practice. Study each case as an opportunity to master your skill. Map your workflow. You have to have a process. You need to know what it is you are doing. And from a design perspective, know what it is you are making before you actually set out to make it. You need to have a clear picture of what the final restoration should look like.
Continuous Learning
As mentioned earlier, you really need to invest in learning and mastering the skills of digital dentistry. The best way to do that is to take up mentorship. Have a guiding light. It’s not like you can just take up a day course and consider yourself all set and ready to create masterpieces. It is quite difficult to learn all the trade secrets, all the steps in just a day course or that of two or three days. You really need someone who can teach you case by case, so that you don’t go through hundreds of trials and errors yourself before getting it right.
Don’t Be Afraid to Temporize
A lot of dentists ditch temporizing all together once they go digital. What this does is, it leaves room for a lot of errors. Temporizing might look time consuming, but if you have to spend three times more of that time trying to fix a probable mistake, then temporizing doesn’t seem all that daunting. And if you look at it long term, say you are looking at a 30 year career, and if you have to temporize for the first two years of doing CEREC, chairside so that you can produce incredible restorations for the next 28 years, then it’s not a bad bargain.
Create Your Own Path Way to Success
There are two groups of dentists; one that are willing to incorporate digital and the others that aren’t. And they both are doing equally well or bad, depending on their level of determination and mastery. The fact is, digital dentistry can reap great results, provided you give it due time for learning and experience. But, if a digital workflow does not sound something you’d be comfortable with then there is no reason why you should opt for it. There are a thousand different pathways to success, with and without the assistance of technology. While you should look for inspiration and mentorship, try to pave your own path to success, because that’s the only one that can take you to your goals.
P.S. Whenever you’re ready …. here are 4 ways I can help you grow your dental practice:
- Grab a free chapter from my book “Retention – How to Plug the #1 Profit Leak in Your Dental Practice”
The book is the definitive guide to patient retention and how to use internal marketing to grow your practice – Click Here - Join the Savvy Dentist community and connect with dentists who are scaling their practice too
It’s our Facebook group where clever dentists learn to become commercially smart so that they have more patients, more profit and less stress. – Click Here - Attend a Practice Max Intensive live event
Our 2 day immersive events provide access to the latest entrepreneurial thinking and actionable strategies to drive your practice forward. You’ll leave with a game plan to take your results to the next level. If you’d like to join us, just send me a message with the word “Event and I’ll get you all the details! – Click here - Work with me and my team privately
If you’d like to work directly with me and my team to take your profit from 6 figures to 7 figures …. just send me a message with the word “Private”… tell me a little about your practice and what you would like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details! – Click here
