Simon Reynolds from Patient Plan Direct takes a look at how the dental plan market has evolved and how this has affected dentistry

If your dental practice offers its patients a dental plan then there’s a good chance you’ll administer it through one of the ‘well known’ plan providers in the market. When you made the decision to start a dental plan or indeed if you are thinking of starting a dental plan, what is your main objective? Our guess; It is a means of reliably debiting patients month on month to generate regular income whilst offering your patients an excellent vehicle to budget for and access quality preventative dentistry.

Essentially the administration of a dental plan involves collecting a fee from a patient month on month and in many cases incorporating an A&E dental insurance policy. Therefore, the role of a plan provider should be straightforward and involves administering a financial transaction and facilitating insurance cover. Despite the simplicity of this model many plan providers seem to have evolved in to tying in additional services and support in other practice functions, offering access to events, entertaining ‘key clients’, employing business coaches and much more. This has resulted in a trend of inflating fees year on year. The question is whether or not this evolution is of benefit?

Good or bad evolution?

Paying for services that are useful and utilised is justifiable. But many practices don’t access the range of services offered by their plan provider, and many will never need to, despite paying for the privilege. It’s rather like buying a Christmas Hamper and only cooking the Turkey!

It’s also alarming how many practices don’t actually know how much they pay to administer their dental plan or take the time to assess just what they get from the fees they pay. For many practices there is a worthwhile opportunity to significantly cut costs by administering their dental plan more efficiently. For some, plan provision with access to all the add-on’s may be the right choice, but for many a simple and reliable solution delivered at lower cost makes sense.

The alternative which makes sense

Four years ago Patient Plan Direct came to market with a unique approach to dental plans. A reliable, low cost, practice branded and administratively friendly means of offering patients a dental plan.

This ensures practice’s that administer their plan with Patient Plan Direct know exactly what they pay for and choose to spend the money they save in areas they see fit. It’s an approach which makes sense and is being discovered by more and more practices throughout the UK.

-          We charge a flat transparent fee structure of just £1.00 per patient per month, which can prove to be more than three times less expensive than other providers. 

-          Our fee includes worldwide A&E insurance underwritten by Hiscox insurance.

-          We’ve never increased our fees since we launched our service.

-          Our parent company is First Capital Cashflow, one the UK’s leading payments bureaux. We’re experts in delivering managed payment solutions which is why we’re able to offer our service at such great value.

-          On average we save practices around £9,000 every year, but have saved some practices significantly more.

-          Our client retention rate is 100%. Our client testimonials highlight our focus on quality client service. We’re not just a cheap option, but rather a great value alternative.

Is it time you assessed how you administer your dental plan or if it’s time to start a plan? Switching provider or starting a plan is simpler than you might think. At the very least we promise it’s worth understanding more about Patient Plan Direct. Take action, contact us today and kick start 2014 with a bang.

FIND OUT MORE about Patient Plan Direct’s unique approach to dental plans, charged at just £1 per patient per month.

Visit. www.patientplandirect.co.uk plus more info on www.patientplandirect.com/fees/the-big-fee-freeze/

Call. 0844 848 6888

Email. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Twitter @PatientPlan

Blogging Is Essential To Promote Your Dental Practice or Business

For those of you who are not quite sure what a blog is, you are reading one right now and blogging is becoming more and more an essential part of any dental practice’smarketing strategy.

Why I can hear you all saying? Well hopefully you recently read my series of articles on search engine optimisation which over the three articles outlined what you need to be doing to raise your website’s ranking on Google. One of the things I mentioned was that you need to add new original content to your website, and the best way to do that is blogging.

Blogging is effectively you writing anything you like on any subject really. Because it is your ideas and your thoughts, you can write on any subject and be an forthright is you wish. Ideally you need to make it interesting to your public. So for instance if you are a dentist the subjects you might want to cover would be around oral hygiene etc.

Having said all that don’t make your blogs too serious or technical as you’ll just lose your audience, they have to understand what it is you are trying to convey to them, equally don’t use jargon, or scientific dental terms.

Blogging is one of the best ways to increase the rankings in the natural Google search. As I mentioned in my earlier articles, Google wants to present websites to their audience that are fresh and have new original content on them. Blogging is the most natural place to put this new original content. It will quite literally do wonders for your rankings, quite often my blogs out rank my overall website.

Blogging also has the effect of ranking you for many subjects too so for instance you might want to highlight that you offer implants in your practice, well the best way to do this is to write articles on the subject, use slightly different headlines and titles for the blog and you can start to rank for implants as well as general dentistry etc.

Blogging should also be part of your social media strategy. Every time you write your blog you should be promoting this with both Facebook and Twitter, not to mention Google Circles, this again helps immensely with your Google rankings.

Being seen to be an expert in your specialist field is essential if you are to sell at premium prices. For instance if you are regularly blogging on a  particular subject and your patients and potential patients read them, it is highly likely that when they actually want to use this service that they will turn to you rather than your competitors and they will pay a higher fee because of this too.

We call this in the industry “being the trusted expert”. The down side of this is that you have to give lots of information freely and regularly, which of course takes time and effort. But you’ll see that in the long run you will gain from it immensely, the other way to achieve this of course is to have someone else write them for you and this is one the services I offer my clients.

If you want to increase your revenues and profits, increase the number of new patients and encourage existing patients to spend more with you, call me on 01767 626 398, email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit my website

www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

Oralift - Personal trainer for the face!

Oralift appliances are thermoplastic mandibulary mouthguard-type appliances incorporating 3, 5 or 7mm bite blocks which, when moulded to the teeth, only contact in the molar region.

They are worn in a cycle of two months worn, four months not worn, two months worn, four months not worn etc.  However, when not being worn they still seem to be having an effect on the ageing process because of the long-term results Nick has observed.  It’s like having a personal trainer for the face!

How does Oralift work?

There are a number of theories. The most plausible one seems to be that, when it is in the mouth, the muscles of the head and neck are activated to create an increased Free Way Space and this activity generates new chemistry and adjustments within the musculature.

What results can be achieved?

As part of the ageing process there is a downward migration of the soft tissues of the face, so that the ageing triangle changes from a youthful inverted triangle, pointing towards the chin, to an elderly triangle with the base at the chin. The Oralift appliance is designed to have an effect on these soft tissues and to reverse the ageing triangle to a youthful one.

The biggest changes occur in the skin, which becomes thinner and loses its elasticity during the ageing process.

At the same time, all the facial muscles gradually decrease in mass. By the age of 60 they retain only about 60% of their volume. Meanwhile, the muscles of facial expression increase in tone so that wrinkles and crow’s feet start to develop.

Fat on the face is stored in compartments between the skin, muscles of facial expression and deep muscles, but as people age it migrates down towards the jowls. 

As people age the facial skeleton changes. Research is now showing that these changes contribute to the southward migration of the soft tissues. The maxilla moves inwards, so that the skin and muscles are no longer supported and cause the naso-labial folds to become deeper. These changes could partly be attributed to changes in facial muscle function. As the muscles on the face deteriorate, the strain they put on the facial skeleton changes. This could lead to the remodelling of the facial skeleton.  However, if the muscle function is improved, as a result of wearing an Oralift appliance, these changes may be reversed again contributing to a more youthful appearance.

Using Oralift you can manipulate the Free Way Space to create a three dimensional change to the face, which will help to restore the Golden Proportion. In many cases, both Class II and III patients can be altered into Class I when the mandible is at rest, although when in maximum intercuspation the face will revert back to its original form. This can be achieved without the need for orthodontics or surgery, just by manipulating the Free Way Space. 

Smile Design 

As a result of the ageing effect on the face there is a change in the “smile window”, so that the amount of tooth displayed becomes less because the “mask” is coming down. Observers start to notice more of the lower teeth and less of the upper teeth.

As the ageing triangle migrates downwards it also affects the patient’s smile profile.  If you reverse this migration, using Oralift, the “facial mask” moves upwards too, without the need for any tooth adjustment.

As people age their whole face tends to become asymmetrical as a result of bony and/or muscular changes.  Wearing an Oralift appliance helps correct this asymmetry. 

Conclusion

Oralift can provide a long-lasting, natural and non-invasive solution to the ageing process.

To learn more about the Practice Building Benefits of Oralift attend one of Nick Mohindra’s Two Day Hands On Courses. The £650 Course Fee includes 12 hours verifiable CPD and a free set of Oralift appliances valued at £180.

The next courses will be held in London on the following dates - 7^th and 8^th February, 4^th and 5^th April, 27^th and 28^th June 2014. For further information email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit www.oralift.com

http://oralift.com/cms/become-a-practitioner/

MIMI^®- Flapless Implantation with Single-Tooth Champions Implant (R)Evolution^® in the Esthetic Zone  

Author: Dr. Stephanie Ott, Dental Care Solutions, Frankfurt/Main

*Please note: The tooth numbers mentioned refer to the FDI Notation System (Dental Chart/Two-Digit World Dental Federation Notation)

As a dentist in private practice, I have placed and restored different implant systems since 2001. For some time, I have incorporated MIMI^®-Flapless, the Minimally Invasive Implantation Method, as an additional treatment in my dental office. I am delighted to say that this implantation procedure that is performed without surgical flaps and opened mucosa proves to be less traumatic for patients than the conventional methods of implantation that require reflected flaps and direct visualization of the bone. Most patients feel almost no pain, swelling or post- operative soreness after the surgery. In most cases, patients can resume their activities that day or the next. In this article I would like to describe a case of an implantation of Teeth 11 (#8) and 21 (#9) and the following 8 weeks.

Fig. 1-3: X-rays after the patients’ accident that caused a fracture of the zygomatic bone and the nasal septum: view of the roots of Teeth 11 and 21. Both teeth were lost. The clinical situation 4 months post extraction. 

Implantation

After administering local anesthesia with UDS-forte, we inserted a Champions^® conical triangular yellow drill transgingivally until it was in contact with the periosteum to determine the gingival height and thickness (laser markings: every 2 mm). We measured 2 mm-gingival thickness. We drilled transgingivally and slightly palatinally at a slow rotation speed of a maximum of 250 rpm (no water used) (Fig.4 and 5). After measuring the initial gingival thickness and before placing a 10 mm-Champions Implant (R)Evolution^®, we prepared the bone with the following 3 conical triangular drills in the D2/D3 bone: first the yellow drill, followed by the black drill and finally the white drill. These drill types allow the spongy bone to be laterally condensed. Between each drill sequence a bone cavity check is performed. (Bone Cavity Check “BCC” is a manual check of the bone cavity to confirm all walls of the prepped bone are intact.”)

Fig. 4-6: Use of the conical triangular yellow drill to prepare the implantation site using the MIMI^®-Flapless technique and Bone Cavity Check (BCC) with the flexible thin BCC probe.

After the drilling, a 3.0 mm-diameter condenser (Fig.9) was used to extend, expand and condense the spongy bone area to confirm the implant size picked was correct. If primary stability cannot be reached, a larger diameter can be placed. In this case, primary stability of 30/40 Ncm was achieved, which was indicated when the Torque Wrench middle line moved from 20 to 40 Ncm and when the arm of the Torque Wrench bent at 40 Ncm (Fig. 10). We unpacked the blister package and removed the sterile Champions (R)Evolution^® implant from the vial. As a rule, you can insert the implant manually with the integrated white plastic Insertion Aid that is attached when the package is opened. There is no need to touch the sterile implant or reset the Insertion Aid. Once the resistance becomes so great that you cannot insert any further, you can remove the Insertion Aid and place the gold hex headed metal driver on the implant head. You have 2 choices to continue the insertions: either use a surgical unit with handpiece at very low RPM (5-10 rpm) or use the Torque Wrench on the gold driver. This treatment is non-traumatic and takes only a few minutes. In this case, the Torque Wrench was used to drive the implants on both 11 (#8) and 21 (#9) to the desired depth. The total time for both placements was less than 1 hour. Finally, X-rays were taken. The patient was very satisfied. She compared this to a friend who had conventional implantation in another office that took two hours to complete.

Fig.7 to 10: After drilling with the yellow, black, and white conical triangular drills in the soft D3/D4 bone, condensers were used with the Torque Wrench. The Torque Wrench was adjusted to 20 Ncm. When the scale sleeve bent around the axis of the Torque Wrench at 40 Ncm and the middle line moved from 20 to 40 Ncm, primary stability at 40 Ncm was reached.

Fig. 11-13: Manual insertion of Champions Implant (R)Evolution^® Shuttles by means of the Insertion Aids. The Shuttle (also playing the role of transgingival healing) should not stick out of the tissue more than 1 mm to avoid strong lateral shear forces of occlusion particularly during the first 2-6 weeks post surgery.

Fig. 14-16: The second implant, including the bacteria-proof Shuttle, was placed. The 3.5 mm-high Shuttle is fastened with 10 Ncm from the factory. The implant and Shuttle were placed so only 1 mm of the Shuttle was supragingival. As a rule, if the mucosa is less than 3 mm thick before drilling, subcrestal drilling and positioning of the implant will be preferable to prevent the Shuttle from sticking out more than 1 mm above the gingival height, thus preventing lateral shear forces and movement on the Shuttle head.

Fig. 17-19: After taking X-rays, a WIN! Gingiva-Clix was set on the Shuttle of each Champions Implant (R)Evolution^®. Then, a temporary prosthetic restoration (Maryland bridge) was fitted and cemented with Fynal (Dentsply).

Impression & Laboratory & Prosthetic Restoration

During the seven weeks post surgery (Transition between Primary Osseointegration Stability and Secondary Osseointegration Stability), the patient felt no pain and experienced no complications. Seven weeks post surgery, the temporary restoration and Gingiva-Clix were removed. A closed transgingival Impregum impression of the implants was made through the Shuttles. The Gingiva-Clix were replaced on the Shuttle and the temporary restoration recemented. The supragingival treatment lasted 15 minutes without the need of anesthesia or X-rays. Our German laboratory, DENTworry in Alzenau, Germany, manufactured two individual zirconium-coated crowns. It is important to provide the laboratory with both Implant Analogs and Shuttles to preserve the exact location of the implant and the soft tissue contour. The lab should use gingival mask material to simulate soft tissues.

After a week, the Shuttles, including the screws, were removed for the first time. The angled titanium Abutments were placed using a resin key and screwed in to a torque of 30 Ncm. The final crowns (zircon) were fitted and cemented.

Fig. 20 to 22: After unscrewing the retaining screw from the Shuttle/Implant, the Shuttle Extractor (R)Evolution was used to remove the Shuttle. With the adapter, the Shuttle Extractor was manually screwed clockwise in through the Shuttle and into  the implant. This lifts the Shuttle off of the implant. Favorable peri-implant soft-tissue results are observed from the Shuttle and Gingiva-Clix. Before the removal of the Shuttle and placement of the Abutments, the inner diameter of the implant has remained sterile during 6-8 week healing. This prevents the problems of peri-implantitis around the healing implant. The titanium Abutments are screwed in and torqued to 30 Ncm, and the screw shafts are covered with cotton pellets and Cavit.  

The implant/Abutment can be connected with the same screw as the one removed from the Shuttle that was connected to the implant. In this case, the crowns were fitted and cemented in only 15 minutes without anesthesia. Highly esthetic results were obtained.

Fig. 23: X-rays. Fig. 24 and 25: After fitting the Abutments and the crowns, excellent esthetic results in the buccal and palatinal areas were obtained.

Conclusion

Apart from the advantages of the non-traumatic, efficient and time-saving treatment, the innovative and high-quality Champions Implant (R)Evolution^® and prosthodontic restorations are more affordable for patients than conventional implantation (total price: 135 €, including Gingiva-Clix, angled Abutment, Laboratory Analog, Shuttle, and impression, laboratory and dental accessories). This implant system has now been fully integrated into the treatment services offered in my dental office. I don’t want to be without it!! The innovative Champions Implant (R)Evolution^® is a real "Revolution".

In fact, the MIMI^®-Flapless method is very promising for patients. Over the past 10 years, international scientific studies at universities have shown that the MIMI^®-Flapless method is very beneficial. One of the many advantages of the system is no need of re-entry in the gingival tissue during the impression or when the final restorations are placed. Many patients are enthusiastic about MIMI^®-Flapless implantation techniques and the Champions^® implants.

Please watch the video of this case here:

https://vimeo.com/75207980

Author:  Dr Stephanie Ott     DENTAL CARE SOLUTIONS

Leipziger Strasse 4    60487 Frankfurt am Main                            

Tel.: 069 - 97 78 33 66     

Internet: www.dr-ott.net       

Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.