Editor's Note Carol Murphy, Executive Editor

This month, one of the industry’s most recognized consultants, Sally McKenzie did me a favor by authoring an article on the best way to get patients into your practice to utilize their unused insurance benefits. Sally gives you a step-by-step plan to follow including sample correspondence to motivate your patients into action. By the way, if you haven’t visited Sally’s website recently at: www.mckenziemgmt.com, you might want to point your browser in that direction. The website is a wealth of information–not just teasers–that you can put to use right away in your practice. There’s even a quick online assessment questionnaire you can easily complete to tell you whether your practice is operating at peak performance! Sally is also very active on the message boards at our website so, if you need some substantial advice, it’s only a few mouse clicks away.

I found working on this month’s corporate profile focusing on Trident Dental Laboratories, located in Marina Del Ray, California, to be extremely interesting. The company’s President and Founder, Laurence Fishman, started the dental lab when he was 24-years-old and just 14 years later, the company has grown into one of the top dental labs in the country. In writing the article, I came in contact with several employees and key management personnel. From my experience, I believe everyone in the company takes their commitment to quality, value and service very seriously. After reading the article, be sure to visit their website located at: www.tridentlab.com.

I’m so happy to inform you there are now over 12,300 registered dentists on our DentalTown website (www.dentaltown.com). The site is really bursting with communication exchanges on every topic you can think of related to dentistry–and some that aren’t related! If for some reason you haven’t visited the website yet, you’re really doing yourself a big disfavor...honestly! Dentists write us every week thanking Howard for hosting the site and explaining how much the information they receive has literally changed the way they practice.

In addition to the message boards, your online community also has clinical case presentations posted by real practicing dentists, like you. This month, we are proud to present two such clinical cases. One case involves improving endo with rotary files by Fred Barnett, DMD and Ken Serota, DDS, MMSc. If you have ever experienced file breakage, this article may help you avoid future complications. The other clinical presentation is by Chaim Wexler, DDS who shares a case he recently did to secure a patient’s bridge with mini-implants. This case really demonstrates the vast potential for using mini-implants.

You can access all the presentations by clicking on the ‘Kodak presents’ flashing box to the right of your screen when you arrive at the website. You will have to supply your username (the name you used to register at DentalTown) and the password you assigned yourself during registration.