On-Site Dental Laboratory

Very few dental offices have an in-house dental laboratory. We believe it is one of our great strengths as it allows us full control of the whole restorative process. It significantly reduces our preparation time from consultation to being able to place implants. It means we have the capability to create models with implant replicas in place, to generate Surgical Guides for precise implant positioning and to have provisional abutments and restorations ready to be placed when the implants have been inserted

When it comes to producing restorations such as crowns, instead of the traditional procedures such as waxing and casting, we now design restorations on the computer and they are then milled from high strength esthetic zirconia at an off-site industrial facility with superior CAD-CAM production capabilities running 24 hours a day. They are then returned to us so that Boris, our Technician can finish, assemble and characterize each restoration according to the prescription. With our all-digital processes the precision and accuracy of the final restorations have markedly improved from those that were produced by traditional methods. Zirconia restorations are stronger, have a much better fit, appearance and gingival reaction than those with metal margins that for so long were the standard.

Our in-house capabilities have recently been enhanced by the construction of a new 3D printing facility in the rear of the office. This 3D printing technology is now used for model production to allow for the most accurate representation of our patients. We can even place an implant replica in the model in the same position that the implant will be placed in the mouth using Surgical Guide Technology. This means we can move into therapy much faster than was previously possible

Our all-digital capability also allows us to export designs for manufacture of specialized components. A good example of this was when a Philadelphia Eagles player needed a new mouthguard in a hurry. We saw him in the afternoon, performed an Intra Oral Scan which was then uploaded to a Laboratory in New Mexico specializing in Mouthguards. They got into production that evening so he was able to wear the nightguard in his next play-off game. The Eagles went on to win the Super Bowl!