Hot towels, soft music, satellite TV, and ergonomic massaging chairs, are just a few of the comforts that patients find at my practice. Cosmetic procedures are elective—patients looking for elective cosmetic dentistry do not arrive at the office in pain, and they are likely to have expendable income dedicated to the goal of improving their smile. For this reason, the aesthetic dentist’s challenge is to take diagnostic equipment to a higher level to be able educate patients to available procedures.
Digital imaging is part of efficient communication... AND it adds to the “wow factor.” Patients see their teeth in the mirror every day. We must supply images that will help them learn about improving their dentition. Digital radiography has become the standard of care in diagnostics, providing superior-quality images in a couple of seconds. It is an excellent diagnostic aid with which to compose a treatment plan. On the screen, we can enhance or zoom in, invert, or emboss an image to communicate the possibilities in an unobtrusive way.
My whole digital diagnostic armamentarium is called out for patients with problems that can't be seen or felt, like a fractured restoration. In this situation, we use intraoral and Digital Panoramic / Cephalometric X-Ray, the Intraoral Digital Camera, and my Dental Patient Education Systems. All of these show the patient subclinical problems that may not be manifested, but that certainly exist.
In my practice, we utilize the panoramic as a screening tool. Our standard radiographic series consists of four bitewings and a panoramic x-ray. And in the 12 seconds that it takes the digital system to capture a panoramic image, there is no greater revenue generator that your assistant can provide for you.
Besides aesthetics, the pan is also my first and foremost tool for general pathology. From the pan, I find lesions, supernumeraries, and situations that greatly decrease the morbidity and mortality of my patients. For example, a routine pan on a 17-year-old showed a 3-centimeter traumatic bone cyst that was not diagnosed from a set of intraoral x-rays. As a result, the patient had surgery and was able to keep all of her teeth. If the cyst was not found and treated at that time, she could have experienced major loss of her mandible as well as teeth.
Digital imaging technology has turned out to be life-changing for me and my patients.