![]() This obviously far outweighs the $20 cost of materials only. We can quickly see that even in the simplest clinical scenarios, there is an 11.5-minute time drain, which equates to a procedural cost of $77. Impression material delivery (working and set time): five minutes.Preimpression cleanup, retraction evaluation: one minute.Hemostasis and tissue retraction: five minutes. ![]() Let’s run through a typical scenario for a single-tooth restoration once preparation is completed and tissue management and final impression procedures are initiated. However, at $400 per hour, total provider overhead lands at $7 per minute. This can easily be approximated by adding up average PVS, retraction/hemostasis, mixing tips, adhesives, and tray component costs from supplier catalogs. The material cost of an average full-arch final impression is estimated to be just over $20. 2 All too often, I see doctors who seem resigned to the fate that a certain number of impressions must be repeated and a certain number of final restorations may not fit, leading to a repeat of the entire process-added appointments for patients and a huge opportunity cost. The average private practice in the US runs at an overhead rate of $400 per hour. The economicsĪll too often, we lose sight of our most costly commodity in practice-provider time. 1 This issue is complicated by the fact that the quality of a final impression is not standardized across practitioners. Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that 86% of final impressions submitted to commercial labs have at least one critical error, and 55% of noted errors critically involve the finish line. It can be argued that no other procedure in dentistry has such a critical link to outcome quality than a final impression used to fabricate an indirect restoration. As formulations improved and popularity increased, these materials replaced competitive classes-such as polysulfides, polyethers, and reversible hydrocolloids-as the most prevalent material used in practice to capture crown and bridge impressions. PVS impression materials have served the dental profession well for decades. The focus of this article will be to discuss best practices for impression taking, while introducing a recently released iteration of polyvinyl siloxane (PVS) impression materials with improved characteristics compared to traditional entries in this class. The advantages of digital capture are well defended in the literature with respect to accuracy, but the fact remains that the majority of practitioners are still using an analog impression medium in their practices. WHILE DATA VARIES based on the reporting source, digital scanners have penetrated dental practices at under 20%.
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