Dental lab orders: from impression to fitting without a lost phone call
The patient arrives for the crown fitting and the crown has not come back from the lab. Someone calls, the lab says "tomorrow", the patient takes a new appointment and leaves angry. The scene repeats in most clinics because the lab order lives in a notebook or a WhatsApp message, not somewhere with a status and a date.
The lab order is the longest loop in dental treatment
A filling ends in the session. Crowns, bridges, dentures and clear aligners leave the clinic for the lab and come back days later, sometimes wrong, and go out again. Every trip out and back is a chance to lose an impression, a shade or an appointment.
A clinic that sends 60 lab cases a month has 60 things outside its walls at any moment, and nobody knows where each one is without a call.
Every order needs a status, not a memory
The order starts from the session: tooth, type, shade, material, lab and the agreed delivery date. Then it moves through clear states: sent to lab, in production, arrived at clinic, ready to fit, fitted, returned for adjustment.
When the status is recorded, "where is Mrs X's crown?" is an answer on screen, not a call. More importantly, orders past their due date appear in a morning list before the patient arrives.
Book the fitting after the piece arrives, not before
The biggest source of anger is a fitting booked on the day the impression is taken, after which the lab runs late. Better to book provisionally and confirm to the patient on WhatsApp only when the piece is recorded as "arrived and checked". A patient who only comes when the piece is ready never knows the lab was late.
Details written once so they are not lost
The shade in the standard shade system, the material, the tooth number, photos, notes for the technician: all written in the order itself and sent to the lab as they are. An order written on a slip with the impression loses half of these details on the way.
When a piece comes back wrong, the reason for the remake is recorded on the same order. After three months a pattern shows: which lab remakes most, which type of restoration runs late, which dentist's impressions get sent back.
Lab cost is part of case profit
The lab invoice arrives at month end as one total, and nobody knows what each case cost. When the lab price is recorded on the order, the cost of each crown shows in the case profit, is deducted from the dentist's share if that is the agreement, and the monthly lab invoice is matched against the orders actually received.
That settles another monthly argument: the dentist whose share is reduced by lab fees they never see. When the fees are on the case, the dentist, the accountant and the owner all see the same number.
In-house and external labs under the same rules
A clinic with its own lab needs the same statuses, with one difference: the technician updates the status from their own screen. A group that works with three external labs needs a report that compares them: delivery time, remake rate and price per type.
What to ask of the software
An order that comes out of the patient's session rather than a separate screen, clear statuses with dates, a morning list of what is late, an automatic message to the patient when the piece is ready, and lab cost on the case. If the lab offers an electronic link, use it; if not, the order and result are tracked from the clinic the same way.
Try it free
Runs in your browser, no sign-up, and nothing about your patients leaves it.
Start with a ready file
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Questions
Does the software connect to the lab directly?
Where the lab offers an interface, yes. Where it does not, the order, status and result are still tracked from the clinic, and reception updates the status on receipt.
How do we know a piece is late before the patient's appointment?
Every order has an agreed delivery date, and orders past it appear in a daily list, so the lab is called before the patient arrives rather than after.
Is the lab price deducted from the dentist's share?
According to the clinic's agreement. When the price is recorded on the case it can be deducted from the dentist's share automatically or left with the clinic, and both parties see the figure.
What about cases returned for adjustment?
They are recorded as a remake on the original order with the reason, so the cost is not counted twice and the remake count per lab shows in the report.
Does this work for a clinic with an in-house lab?
Yes, the same statuses, but the technician updates them from their own screen instead of reception, and the in-house lab's productivity is measured the same way as external labs.
Does the patient know when their piece arrives?
Yes, with an automatic WhatsApp message when the piece is recorded as "ready to fit", with a link to confirm the fitting appointment.
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