Now Offering In-house Dental Lab for Quick Turnaround
Posted: September 21, 2006
It’s parodied on television and heard in conversations daily; people hate going to the dentist. For whatever reason, the dentist is the number one most dreaded doctor by patients everywhere. One local dentist is doing his part to make the experience easier for his patients, and for other Long Island dental patients.
Thanks to technology and a little original thinking, Huntington Bay Dental, located at 222 East Main Street in Huntington, has opened its own dental lab, offering patients in-house services that many local dentists can’t. Dr. Eugene L. Antenucci and his associates ¾ Dr. Roseann Cavallaro, Dr. Adamo Notarantonio, and Dr. Sofia Fokas ¾ are offering their patients convenience and unparalleled quality in their dental restorations by providing them in a new, state-of-the-art dental lab in Huntington Bay Dental’s office.
“Our new dental lab gives us complete control over the process,” said Dr. Antenucci. “An outside lab technician has no connection with the patient and is working without any information other than the shape of the tooth.”
Photos and a description can’t replace the technician actually seeing the patient and seeing what the final product needs to match.
“Our lab technicians become a part of the team,” Dr. Antenucci continued. “They meet the patient, and can not only perfectly replicate the tooth, but they can get all the nuances of the color and shape so that the tooth matches perfectly.
“We have complete control over the results and the quality of the process,” he said.
A major challenge for dentistry and dental labs today is dealing with emerging technology. As new technology becomes available, it becomes too costly for many labs to consider. In fact, many labs, according to Dr. Antenucci, outsource their work to other labs that have the latest technology, sometimes going so far as to send their work out of the country, where, like many other industries, the labor and products are cheaper.
“It’s getting way out of control,” said Dr. Antenucci. So he and his associates found a way around it.
Through new CAD/CAM technology, dental labs can transform the way dentists do business. CAD/CAM, which stands for Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Machining, allows dentists to use computer technology to replace the old system of taking an impression of the teeth, making a wax replica, creating a plaster shell, filling the shell with gold, covering the gold with porcelain or ceramic, and baking the replica tooth, thereby creating the restoration. The CAD/CAM technology used by Huntington Bay Dental is called CEREC InLab, an acronym that stands for Chairside Economical Restoration of Esthetic Ceramics.
CEREC InLab, by Sirona, consists of image acquisition electronics, an infrared camera, and milling unit. These tools combined with state of the art CEREC 3D software allow dentists to create perfect-fitting, aesthetically-pleasing, ceramic restorations, oftentimes in one office visit. For the patient, this means fewer injections, less drilling, and less time out of their hectic schedule for dental care.
The tooth gets scanned, designed on a computer, and the tooth gets carved out of a very strong substance called zirconium, instead of costly gold. The porcelain or ceramic is then built onto the zirconium coping. Cutting out the time-intensive part of the process, the computer takes seconds to scan and design the tooth. The entire process takes several hours instead of, sometimes, many days.
“Whereas outside labs can take one to two weeks to turnaround the restoration, our inside lab can do it in one to two days,” said Dr. Antenucci. “We’re adding convenience, and offering a better product and superior service.”
By changing the process from labor-intensive to digitally-driven, the Huntington Bay Dental lab is able to offer their services to many more than just their own patients. The lab services patients from dental practices all over the Island.
Between the cost of renovating the office to make space for the lab, the lab equipment, the training and salaries for the technicians, and the supplies, Huntington Bay Dental’s lab is breaking even. To keep costs reasonable for their patients, they supplement the lab’s work by doing for work other area labs and dentists. It helps increase the office’s volume and profit.
“Other labs want to offer the CEREC product,” said Dr. Antenucci. “The aesthetics are second to none, and the product is lifelike, strong, and fits well. But they don’t want to or can’t make the investment into the technology.”
The work Huntington Bay Dental’s lab does for other labs and dentists helps keep their own patients’ costs from rising.
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