How do I save money on dental supplies? 

Operating a dental office requires a substantial upfront cost for dental equipment and supplies.

Dentists spend a large percentage of overhead keeping those supplies stocked.

Many routinely purchase items from a dental supply distributor, never realizing they are overpaying for items.

Unlike manufacturers, distributors charge more for products, therefore increasing dentists' overhead costs.

Manufacturers save dentists money by cutting out the middleman and providing the lowest prices for dental supplies.

Basic Equipment Costs

For

Going Through Your Inventory

The most important task that a dental office manager needs to do is fill orders. By this we mean getting the patients in, and making sure the dentist has the resources to address them.

To fill those orders, you’re going to need to find out what supplies are required to meet the needs of the upcoming procedures. But it’s not just the procedure that you need to worry about, because the patient will or may visit several rooms in your practice. So the best thing is to have a checklist and to go around the entire office, marking off anything that might be getting low.

Here’s a great breakdown of all the most common disposable and infection control supplies for all the different rooms

In the fast-paced and demanding environment of dental clinics, efficient and reliable sterilization of instruments is paramount to ensure patient safety and infection control. One crucial item that has revolutionized dental instrument reprocessing is the self-sealing sterilization pouch.

Components and Features:

A self-sealing sterilization pouch is typically made of a medical-grade, durable, and puncture-resistant material, often a combination of transparent polypropylene and medical-grade paper. These pouches come in various sizes to accommodate different instruments, from small dental items such as burs, handpieces, explorers to larger things such as forceps, rubber dam frames, instrument cassettes

This explanatory article on barriers is part of a series of articles that were created to help new office managers and patients understand the uses and best practices of barrier products for infection control. 

Interim guidance on infection prevention and control for suspect, probable, or confirmed monkeypox within Healthcare settings*

Symptoms of Hand-Foot-and-Mouth Disease

Symptoms of hand-foot-and-mouth disease usually include fever, mouth sores, and skin rash. The rash is commonly found on the hands and feet. Hand-foot-and-mouth disease is common in infants and children younger than 5 years old. Most children have mild symptoms for 7 to 10 days.

Fever and flu-like symptoms

Children often get a fever and other flu-like symptoms 3 to 5 days after they catch the virus. Symptoms can include fever, eating or drinking less, sore throat, or feeling unwell.

Mouth sores

Your child can get painful mouth sores.

Norovirus:

• Is a small non-enveloped virus (27 nanometers); moderately to highly resistant to inactivation
• Worldwide infections number greater than 680 million recorded cases annually, with 200,000 deaths (from 2015 data)
• Is a very persistent virus in the environment (water and environmental surfaces)

In the past few months, I have been asked by dental offices what type of training the person performing instrument reprocessing requires.

Regardless of geographical location, every dental office MUST have a policy in effect that specifies the requirements and frequencies of baseline and ongoing IPAC education and training, as well as a competency assessment of the employee in regard to instrument reprocessing and the equipment used for reprocessing.

What does this mean for new hires and existing employees?

First, it means when new hires come on board, having an existing team member, or the team member that is about to leave train the new hire no longer cuts it. Why?

Because it’s not enough.