Strategy: Place Intraoral Scanners in Dental Offices, Drop Problem Accounts

In this day of dwindling labor resources for labs, I’m using two strategies to stay productive. Since 2018, we’ve been buying intraoral scanners and placing them in our clients’ offices. I often hear labs say this is too expensive but we now have 14 units in the field that generate about $45,000 in revenue each month and my total monthly payment is only about $7,000 a month.

I have clients sign a contract that establishes me as owner of the unit, gives the terms of when the office can return it or when I can remove it and sets a minimum of 20 crowns a month; however, I’m not super strict: some of my accounts do a little less than that and others do way more.

I’m at the point now where I can train doctors on our longtime scanners like the Primescan or Omnicam and, when we invest in a new scanner—we just bought two iTero Element 5Ds—I have our supplier provide training for our dentists and their staff members.

Today,...