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When we charge more for our work we must provide a value which substantiates the fee. Conversely, if your work is based on mere acceptability, and only on the value of being such, you can expect nothing but just acceptable fees.There are several areas in the fabrication of removable prosthetics which we can enhance with additional effort that will project and substantiate their provision.
Communication and fabrication techniques are categories I identify as areas to provide direction for change. Communication tools would be the primary place to begin elevating your laboratories value to your clients. Establishing minimum guidelines of what you must be supplied in order to fabricate at an acceptable level must be understood before you can ask and deliver something beyond. Many laboratories under emphasize what they need in order to lessen the burden of clinical performance to new accounts. This begins a cascading effect of competing by providing a path of least resistance to accounts. Laboratories that want to project higher value must ask for the most information needed to justify the result. Although you have a "wish list" of things you want, always be sure you understand that by asking for more you also agree to deliver more. By asking for the world and only delivering a continent you actually can do more harm than good in establishing your higher value. So, realistically elevaluate what level you can perform, and establish by policy, what you must have to be there. as your talents improve in utilization, establish higher minimums of communication.
Tools available to enhance communication can include things as simple as a thoroughly complete prescription,
fully adjustable articulators, digital photography, duplicate denture custom trays, processed baseplates, alma gauge and papillameter measurements.
Techniques which take standard materials and enhance their look or performance is another area that evokes a value response. Shape and shade modifying denture teeth, and custom color characterization of the base are just two ways in which we can take an "off the shelf" product, and with slight modification techniques make them customized and add subsequent value. A often missed opportunity to increase value perception also involves the base contours as they relate to the wax try-in, and its depiction of the final denture. The best clinical evaluation of removable prosthetics stems from contours that are exact as possible to the final product. Concerning the clinical evaluation, a stabilzed fit of the baseplate using a pre-processed base, which
which possesses the exact fit of the final is another way to increase your value. Although I do not suggest them for every case, I do recommend them to my clients when treating patients with deficient, atrophic, or traumatized residual ridges who enter treatment with a chief complaint concerning the fit of their existing dentures.
By the way, do your accounts know what acrylic you use, why you use it, how you pack your mold and what time technique of cure you use and why? Amazingly, most Drs. have no idea of the methods and advantages of techniques you use on their cases. It is surprising how we miss emphasizing the simple things we do to provide value to our products and possibly stand out from the crowd.By emphasizing some of these ideas and others, next time you read a dental laboratory fee survey you will find that you are in a position that better reflects the fees you want coupled with a comensurate value.
