Do You 'Tap Dance' to Make Your Practice Better?

To clarify, I'm not really talking about actually tap dancing to help build your practice. This is a quick tip that you can use every day to help reduce patient discomfort and increase the chance that they return for future treatment and refer patients.

The “tapping” I'm referring to is having your patient tap their teeth together. When I'm going to do a restoration or complete an occlusal adjustment, I'll look at the occlusion or how the teeth fit together, but I also listen to how they fit together as well.

What I mean by listening is to have your patient tap their teeth together a couple of times, so you can hear the sound the teeth make currently compared to what it sounds like after you try in a crown, place a filling, or anything else that alters the occlusion.

As an example, the next time you deliver a single crown listen to what the patient's bite sounds like before and after you try it in. You will be amazed at how often you think the occlusion or bite is correct on a restoration only to find out it sounds different. When you adjust it further, the patient will also notice the difference as well.

This simple tip can often reduce post-operative issues such as tooth soreness and sensitivity on new restorations and help increase return visits from patients that are uncomfortable or unhappy.

Jeff Lineberry DDS, Visiting Faculty, Spear Education. [ www.jefflineberrydds.com ]