What Makes a Good Dental Laboratory?

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September tends to mean quite a few things for us, doesn't it? The heat waves of summer start fading off, the kids go back to school (virtually or otherwise), and patients want to use their dental insurance benefits before the new year comes around. When your schedule starts filling up with patients who need crowns, nightguards, and retainers, I start planning — one of the most important parts of my job.

I've always felt very strongly about keeping the quality of our work at the highest standard possible. Two things I pride myself on: The level of detail I put into each case and the dedication to always improve my craft. Before the digital age, many traditions in dental laboratory work ensured quality and longevity. It wasn't popular when I upgraded our systems to digital in 2008, but I never forgot many of the integral steps and techniques that are needed to produce high-quality products that some digital technicians have forgotten, or never took the time to learn and incorporate into their procedures. That still separates us from other laboratories today.

The truth is that many laboratories and practices that buy their own machinery lack intimate knowledge about the materials they use and how cutting corners, usually in favor of making products quicker for a higher profit, will ultimately produce an inferior product. In the past 28 years — 12 of those years using digital — we've really streamlined our process at Berkeley Dental Laboratory. We're committed to creating the best and most consistent products for our patients.

That brings me to why planning is so important. I can't stress it enough: Every step counts.

For example, not every technician realizes how important some steps are to their product. Every zirconia restoration we make goes into our sintering oven for 10 hours overnight. We never use a shorter or fast cycle. This not only improves the color of the crown (a visual marker of quality), but it also strengthens the crown to last well over a lifetime, which makes for a happier patient. This very important overnight procedure, for obvious reasons, is sometimes skipped by other labs. Many dentists and patients feel the pain of that mistake, and it makes us all look bad.

We also spend a lot of time dialing in custom settings in our computer software, as we work and communicate with each other after your patients' appointments. This way each of our doctors get their crowns to consistently fit in their patients' mouths to match their own unique requested preference. For every case — even cases we receive via digital impression scan — we also take the time to do an additional step to ensure the crown fits on a physical model prior to delivering it to our doctors' offices.

Our expertise and understanding of materials and the personal customer experience our doctors receive when working with us is something we hear time and time again from our doctors and their staff. We work every day to make sure you and your patients are happy, which will help them build long-term trust and loyalty to you and refer friends and family to your practice.