As everyone knows, the medical industry itself is an ever-changing environment in search of the best patient care that can be offered. The new technology provides convenience for both the patient and the doctors. The constant battle to obtain the next great technology grows larger every day, with dentists trying to gain clientele and keep their current one from walking across the street.

Changing the Way Dental Care Works

Recently, new technology like the 3-D printer has completely changed the game for the way patients are cared for in the dental office. Aspen Dental, a large dental company spanning across the U.S. has just opened its first fully digital office in Pompano Beach, Florida. Starting in 2022, every new Aspen Dental opened will be fully digitally equipped with 3-D printers for dentures, crowns, surgical guides, night guards, and those are just to name a few. The offices will also come with all digital labs, design software tools, cone-beamed tomography systems to create a 3-D image of the neck, mouth, jaw, and teeth of course. Not only this but there will be intraoral scanners to take an image of the teeth which will then be used as a blueprint for the 3-D printers.

Technology at a Cost

Of course, all of these new innovative tools are great, but at what cost? Upon my own research, an intraoral scanner could be upwards of 27,000 dollars without any regard to the computer itself. 3D printers cost up to 15-20 thousand dollars, and new lab technology like cone-beamed tomography systems can run up to 50,000 dollars. Add these expenses into things like salary expense, rent expense, utility expense, and product expense a dentist on their own would be looking at an extraordinary amount of money to hash out. This technological advance is more reachable for a large company like TAG which has the wealth to enhance its practices.

Below is Dr. Arwinder Judge, Chief Clinical Officer at Aspen Dental talking about their new digital office in Pompano Beach, FL.